Any swimmers in Chennai? This post has 2 parts, one a small review about the Velachery Aquatic Complex in Chennai and the second requesting help for my swimming technique.
SDAT Aquatic Complex
For those searching - The only Olympics sized pool in Chennai that I know of is the Velachery Aquatic Complex. Maintained by SDAT.
They have 3 pools, a warm up 25M pool which is 3m deep but is usually filled only upto 4 feet, an olympic size 50M pool and a diving pool with boards around 10-15m high if I'm not wrong.
You can see the water turning cloudy/murky as the week progresses. They are closed on Mondays for their weekly (and only if I'm not wrong) cleaning and on Tuesday, the water will be spanking clean with visibility around 15M. On Sundays you will be lucky if the visibility is more than 3M.
There is heavy footfall during the weekends and the changing rooms aren't the cleanest, but they are average.
Members have access to lockers. The complex also has a Badminton court and a fitness centre/gym, for which membership is separate. Ample parking space for both 2 wheelers and cars is available.
The staff are a friendly lot and there always is a lifeguard or 2 on duty, and they are very diligent about keeping the non swimmers away from the main pool.
As always, the pool is dominated by men, but there are quite a number of women and children too.
They are strict about giving membership and require you to demonstrate swimming a full length of the olympic pool. Yearly membership is around ₹12000.
However they have a Pay as you go option for ₹120 which mostly means people coming in for a respite from the heat. Most of these people are kept in the warm up pool (for fear that they may drown in the adult pool), so the Olympic sized pool is almost always available if you intend to swim seriously. The pool has 10 lanes and if classes are on, members are restricted to 3/4/5 lanes out of the 10. This makes it a little tight, but it works.
Help Needed -
Now, I have a few queries about my swimming technique, so if all the veteran/multi year swimmers could help, I would be much obliged.
My parents put me in swimming classes when I was a child, all I learnt from there was that I feared water a lot. (I still judder from when I remember an instructor pushing me from a diving board into the 12 feet end of the pool. That guy had to dive in to get me back up
![Rolling Laughter](https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/images/smilies/Rolling laughter.gif)
) I also learnt/assumed that swimming was just you cycling your arms and legs with your head under the water.
A few years later in my early teens, I got a community swimming pool and learnt to actually swim. Learnt to give up my fear of the water (I now respect it) and learnt to swim (not from classes, but by seeing others swim and those kind souls teaching me ways to perfect my technique).
Today I can swim very confidently to save my life. I assumed I was quite good in swimming all the 4 strokes, but one week at the new pool and a few hours of youtube videos told me I was all wrong. I have tried improving my technique from Youtube and seeing others swim, but I'm not able to perfect it.
For example, in freestyle, I swim without kicking/1 kick per 2 strokes (doing more seems counter intuitive, hasn't given me a speed advantage and tires me out quickly). I can only breathe on my right side and only my right hand actually does the catch phase. The left hand does not play an active role at all and is simply cycled through. Similarly, I can only breathe on my right side, which I do by turning my head (both eyes out the water, and inadvertently sinking a few cm) but if I attempt to recreate this on the left, I tend to sink a lot more and my respect for the water turns back into fear. I can't even try to breathe with one eye under the water, because water tends to go in and I tried weird mouth shapes to no avail. The lady thing I wanted was for the pool water to go into my mouth, so I decided it was fine even if it meant both eyes out the water and sinking a few cm for me to breathe.
In Breast stroke, YT says I'm supposed to pull, kick and glide. Instead I Kick, glide and pull (where I use the pull to come out of the water for my breath). I am unable to unlearn this.
I'd rather not talk about Butterfly. I can cover a 50m length huffing and puffing and pulling on my last ounce of energy with an incorrect stroke (one dolphin kick per cycle of the arms)
Backstroke was always the casual relaxing stroke for me and that meant floating all over the place enjoying the fact that i no longer have to breathe intermittentlyand can breathe whenever I want. Now I'm trying to make sure I stick on the lane marking all the time.
I am able to cover a length of the 50M pool in Freestyle and Breast stroke in about 1:30. Never noticed the time for Butterfly because I was thanking my stars for pulling me across.
I can swim around 300M/500M (10 lengths) before I need a 1-2 minute break.
I'm 24 years old, obscenely obsese, with poor core strength (not that my arms and legs are ripped) and kids younger than me and uncles older than me swim faster (much faster). I have learnt to take them as a sign that I am poor at swimming and learn from them, but unfortunately they are so quick that I'm unable to learn anything at all.
I have tried the numerous drills on YT for improving this, but never seem to gain anything from them.
What am I missing here? My goal is to reduce weight, but also to actually be a better swimmer with good technique.
I set a goal of being able to complete a 50M swim in 30-45 seconds (30 being the ultimate goal)
I think I might need a coach for improving my technique, but the life guards (who double up as coaches for the non competitive swimmers) are not a confidence inspiring lot. Infact they remind me of the "coaches" I had who dunked my head in the water and pushed me in, hoping to quell my fear of water. (I don't blame them, they were probably taught like that and they just meant the best for me, but of course, it didn't work)
The coach for the competitive swimmers is, well very busy when the swimmers are there and can't be seen when the swimmers aren't.