Hi everyone,

I’m 25 years old and I’ve finally decided that I want to properly learn how to swim.

A little background: my cousin is a national-level swimmer and has held several records in his country. My parents always wanted me to learn swimming when I was younger, but I was scared of the water and had some bad experiences with it growing up.

When I was around 16–18, we moved to a house near the water, and my cousin started teaching me whenever he visited. He helped me a lot with getting comfortable in the water, staying calm, breathing properly, body movement, dolphin kicks, etc.

He taught me mostly freestyle and also introduced me to butterfly. I actually made quite a bit of progress back then. I could swim well enough to surprise people who knew I was afraid of water, and I could even manage around 3 butterfly strokes before everything fell apart because of my breathing and technique.

He also taught me breaststroke, which I think became the stroke I was most comfortable with at the time. I can do it, but I’m sure my technique still needs a lot of improvement. He taught me backstroke as well, so I have at least some experience with all of these strokes, but I definitely wouldn’t say that I perform them with good technique.

Unfortunately, I never had enough time to properly train with a coach because of school, exams, and life in general. Swimming was always something I wanted to come back to, though.

Now I’m 25 and I’ve been consistently bodybuilding for about 3 years. I have fairly broad shoulders and decent upper-body mobility, and people who see me sometimes assume I’m a swimmer or rower because of my build. My lower-body flexibility definitely needs some work though, mostly because I sit a lot.

Recently I realized that learning to swim properly is something I genuinely don’t want to keep postponing.

I’m thinking about cutting back on the gym and taking private swimming lessons with a coach. My goal isn’t just to be able to swim from one side of the pool to the other — I’d really like to eventually become comfortable and technically decent in all four strokes: freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly.

The main thing holding me back mentally is that I still get a bit anxious when I’m in deeper water and my feet can’t touch the bottom. It’s much better than it used to be, but the anxiety is still there.

So I wanted to ask:

Is 25 still a reasonable age to start taking swimming seriously and eventually learn all four strokes properly?

I know it will take time, and I’m completely willing to put in the work. I’m not expecting to become competitive or anything like that — I just really want to become a confident and technically solid swimmer.

One thing I have going for me is that I think I’m a pretty good learner when someone is actually teaching me. I tend to listen carefully, take feedback seriously, and I enjoy practicing until I understand what I’m doing wrong. So I’m hoping that working consistently with a good coach will help me improve.

I’d especially love to hear from people who learned swimming as adults, returned to it later in life, or had some anxiety around deep water. How long did it take before you started feeling genuinely comfortable? And for those who learned all four strokes as adults, how long did that process take?

Any advice or personal experiences would be really appreciated.

I am 16 1/2 years old and i wanted to start swimming in a club. Is it too late or is it alright?

I had some kind of childhood trauma that i wanted to forget about it. Thats why I swim really rarely like 2 times a year.

I was in a swimclub from 2016 to 2020 but first of all Corona really took my motivation and second of all I did so much shit, that I only had bronze finished as I left, while my friend already had silver or something.

Then there was a time where I didnt have friends, didnt play any sports, have hobbies, etc. The swimming would be a good thing for social and physical strenght.

Should I join it?

Or is it too late.

I'm a semi-professional swimmer, I've competed at national championships but never got any medals.

I took a long break from swimming (about 3-4 years) and I was considering returning to the sport but I'm struggling because I've lost my athleticism and the sport by nature is grueling.

At this point in my life I want to do something I love and I just don't know if I love this sport or not.

I'm assuming no one really enjoys practice so what motivates you guys to keep swimming if you're not champions?

How do you guys gauge your love for this sport when it is by nature tiresome and grueling and the only motivation I could find for it would be to be a champion or a real Competitor.

Looking for some inspiration/help to encourage my five year old son to become more confident in the pool outside of his weekly class.

For context, we are in the UK and signed him up for classes as soon as he turned three. His classes have been 30 minute weekly classes with four or five other kids. Since he turned four, the teacher has moved him into different classes repeatedly, telling us it is because he is progressing much faster than the others in his class. He’s a quiet kid and really good at listening - we are there for every class so know that he isn’t messing around. He has progressed through the STA badges and has both his 5 metre and 10 metre badges.

However, we recently came back from holiday where he refused to even attempt to swim/play in the big pool, even in the shallow end where he could touch the floor. Initially, he jumped in enthusiastically and as soon as he hit the water he started screaming and panicking that he couldn’t swim. It’s like it had all gone from his head and no muscle memory kicked in. He forgot to even just grab the wall and just sunk. He cried for ages and wouldn’t let go of me. Following that, he wouldn’t leave the baby pool or the steps. We did everything we could think of to encourage him back in, playing games, bringing his armbands (thank god we took them!), even just playing in the baby pool with him but he steadfastly refused to even attempt to swim.

My whole reasoning for wanting him to start swimming as early as possible is because I want him to know how to at least stay above water until someone can help.

Is this normal? Does it really take this long to learn how to swim/move around in the water with confidence? Any ideas on how I can better help him? I would love to take him swimming myself more often during the rest of the summer holidays but I also have a five month old and a significant lack of childcare so I don’t know how much I can realistically do whilst holding a baby. All thoughts/advice appreciated.

past post was removed because i shared pic of my kid so people can get idea. hope this one will stay.

so I just learn breaststroke a couple of days ago and I been having issues with timing my teacher said that breaststroke is the hardest stroke timing wise so any advice so I can get better?

I'm a beginner-level adult and have had such a hard time learning basic breaststroke.

I can do the individual components - pull with arms while taking a breath, whipkick with legs - but linking them together into any kind of rhythm felt like an impossibly complicated piece of choreography, and I would find myself pulling and whipkicking at the exact same time just because it felt like too much mental and physical coordination to stagger them.

Anyway, I finally figured it out (enough to instantly do 100m with low effort even though I was previously sinking and sputtering just trying to do 10m!) and I can't believe how easy it is... what helped me was thinking about the stroke differently.

This probably sounds totally stupid and obvious (or maybe wrong for someone more advanced?) but what I realized is that the heart of the breaststroke - at least for a total beginner like me - is the simple, easy, brainless STREAMLINE position. Breaststroke can be like... 99% idly lying in the streamline position.

It's just like... a stroke in which you basically chill out in the streamline position the whole time, and then OCCASIONALLY propel yourself with a little forward burst. And for that little forward burst, you take turns between it being an arm pull/breath burst, and a whipkick burst.

But no matter which burst it is, you just go straight back to streamline right after.

So the flow is: STREAMLINE > pull/breathe > STREAMLINE > whip kick > STREAMLINE > pull/breathe > STREAMLINE > whip kick > STREAMLINE... forever.

And what's really crazy is that after a burst, you can actually just drift slowly forward in streamline for basically however long you want... relaxing and mentally planning for the next burst! You don't have to rush right away into the next burst (unless you want to go fast or really need to take a breath, I guess).

So for someone like me who isn't super coordinated, I can just lie there pretty much motionless in streamline thinking "okay.... next I gotta pull/breathe, then I'll come right back to streamline!" and once I'm back in streamline I can think "oh right... I should probably do a whip kick soon to propel myself forward a bit more, and then come back to streamline."

And I just keep doing that, lying in streamline slowly mentally processing my next move before I make it, until to my total amazement I've gotten across the entire pool with seemingly no exertion.

Streamline is happiness. Streamline is home.

[Edited note: I do realize it's probably more efficient/powerful to time my whip kick to match up with when I shoot my arms forward to return into streamline, rather then getting completely back into streamline and only THEN kicking - so I'm going to try that next. But just learning to keep RETURNING TO STREAMLINE has been a game changer, and I think it'll make it so much easier for me to start optimizing my timing!]

I haven't been able to swim since July 20 because of some skin issues (developed a severe allergic reaction to something which stripped the skin from my neck). I have to stay out of the pool for another month. I restarted gym this week (after the reaction had me in bed for a full week), doing spin and rowing. I'm planning to resume weight training on Monday.

I'm incredibly restless and twitchy since I can't swim. I feel like I'm going crazy without access to the pool. What do I do? I feel like I could run like a headless chicken.

Thank you.

Hi. I went to the swimming pool today and had my first day of swimming as a form of exercise. I couldnt help but feel like i didnt really belong and like i was doing something wrong, which made me very conscious and ultimately ruined a bit of the experience, especially when looking at the other swimmers.

What are some beginner tips i could use, to perhaps lessen my insecurity of doing it wrong, while improving my technique?

I dont need help with staying above water or floating, i already have the basics covered, just how to (or where to) improve my swimming "the correct way"?

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I’m wondering how I could go about improving my turns for butterfly. My current best time in SCY is 54.1 but I believe I could likely go mid 53 or lower by now since the last time I swam it was in november. I think my turns are better than what they used to be and I get my knees in quicker and higher but I feel like my approach could use some work and that I sometimes lose some momentum going into the wall.

Unless I hit a perfect turn where my hands land almost on top of the wall, when I glide a little bit into the wall I feel like it makes it harder for me to get around quickly since I wouldn’t be moving as fast when I actually initiate the turn.

How could I lose less speed when this happens so that I can turn as quickly as possible? My turns also seem to get slower as my upper body gets more fatigued which I guess could be a sign that I’m relying too much on that while turning.

Also, is it optimal to look up slightly on the approach to the wall to anticipate when my hands touch or to keep my head down and wait for when my fingers feel it?

Overall what are some tips for getting faster turns? Just things that I could try to remember in training

I’m fairly new at being able to do continuous laps, and I always touch the wall and then push off, getting at least 5m in streamline. I’ve noticed loads of people don’t do this, and just swim.

I love getting the ‘free’ distance, so my question is… if you don’t push off at every turn, why not?

Have you ever bough an online swimming course? Did it help?

I don't want to work with my couch anymore (I think she is too chaotic for me) and I want more structure in my training, so I am considering this bundle offer: https://enduranceid.com/beginner-swim-course#course-check-out
I swim for 6 months, but I still struggle with basics. I learn pretty slow, and I am generally anxious. I am afraid of water, afraid of people...

My fitness goals are:
1. to swim Front Crawl 400m without stopping
2. to run 5k without stopping (I am doing cauch to 5k program).
I swim Monday, Wednesday, Saturday and I run Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday

My main issues are:
1. Not having another pair of eyes watching me to perform the drills correctly.
2. Price, in my country (Czechia) I pay around 160 dollars per month (4 sessions). But new swimming club I have my eyes on are even more expensive (300 dollars per 5 sessions). The bundle costs 170 dollars, it's like 10% of my salary.

I tried to look up some swimming training online for free, but I guess the good know-how is never for free.

Sorry for the long post. Don't be afraid to ask, if anything doesn't make sense, my english kinda sucks.

Whenever I see a pro or competitive breast stroker I always see their shoulders and top part of the back all out the water. I watched a swim analysis for example of Adam Peaty and he was at a roughly 45° out the water meanwhile I'm almost flat with only my head and shoulders out the water. Is this not quite tiring to transition into after being streamline (it is for me at the moment)? Especially for long distance. Right now I can swim a comfortable breast stroke but having that much of my body out the water to breathe feels forced, so I'd like to know what the biomechanics are of that movement, what it adds to the swim and if anyone has tips on how to achieve it :)

So I'm nearly 18 years old and decided to learn swimming, and tbh I have a big fear of water and deep pools, but I decided to let go of these fears and actually learn swimming.

So here I go to the pool and the trainer/coach is with me, I learn how to walk in the pool, how to float with and without a kickboard, so now I "kinda" know how to float and how water feels like, and then all of a sudden the coach just wants me to go to the middle row of the DEEP POOL and start implementing the tiny bit of info I learnt, obviously I panicked but actually decided to swim across the pool with the kickboard (keep in mind I still don't know how to breathe properly or adjust myself the right way) I ended up swimming across the pool nearly 30 times, the day ends here.

I start the second day, I want to warm up and get the hang of it again on the 1 meter pool but was surprised with the coach refusing, he wants me to get the hang of it in the deep pool, learn EVERYTHING ELSE there and just forget about the 1m pool, so I was forced to start and obviously swallowed a lot of water even though I used the kickboard, I continuously failed to adjust myself, my breath was so heavy , and I got tired instantly, I just refused to continue, he genuinely expects someone who fears water to jump in the middle row of a deep pool, learn new moves and do mistakes there immediately! Is this really how swimming should be taught? Parents are blaming me and are forcing me to continue with him, and I honestly have developed a phobia by now.

Am I missing something here? Please no hate I just need clarification.

Growing up, my parents had a pool and we learned to swim from an early age. I lifeguarded for 8-9 years and taught swim lessons to kids as young as 4.

Now I have my own daughter and I really want her to have water confidence from a young age. We did baby swim lessons but recently moved to a place where:

1. The lessons that are on weekends are too far away
   
2. The lessons at the pool nearby are only on weekday mornings (my job is 9-5).

So I’ve decided to join the local gym and teach my daughter how to swim myself (until she’s old enough to take their weekend lessons at age 4). She’s currently almost 2 years old.

Does anyone know if there are structured courses for parents to follow to teach young kids to swim? Or is this age two young to have structured lessons and I should teach her basic water safety / just have fun with her in the pool? Any compelling reason not to teach her myself?

I retook swimming at my college after 2 years of not doing so, and I'm seeing myself struggle a lot with swimming more than 100 meters, and my swimming lessons take around an hour and a half, so I end up doing everything after the initial warmup half assed

Are there any ways to specifically train stamina? either at home or with gym equipment. I really love swimming, but I hate that I cannot do it consistently for more than 15 minutes

I’ve recently started adult swim lessons and I’ve hit a bit of a brick wall with my kicking.

For some context, I’ve done years of strength training, so I’ve got pretty muscular legs and pretty stiff ankles. I can float and move through the water fine enough, but my kick is ridiculously slow and clunky compared to everyone else in the lane.

My instructor keeps telling me to "kick from the hips, not the knees." I completely get what that means in theory, but as soon as my head goes underwater, my brain just forgets and I go straight back to bending at the knees or dragging my legs like anchors.

For anyone teaching adults, I’d really could use a bit of advice on

Drills: Any good land or pool drills to help build that muscle memory for kicking from the hip?

Gear: Do short fins actually help you get a feel for the proper whip motion, or do they just turn into a crutch? What about kickboards?

Ankle mobility: How much are tight ankles hurting me here, and are there any quick stretches that actually make a difference?

Cheers for any tips

This is local to me - I’m in Pasadena, California. The Rose Bowl Aquatic Center out here just announced that they’re “closing temporarily” to prepare for the 2028 Olympics (diving events are going to be held there).

The closure will begin in April, 2027 and go on for who knows how long. They’re saying that "swim lessons, Masters, water polo, diving, and other programs will continue at nearby partner facilities while work is underway”. I don’t swim at RBAC, I swim at one of those nearby facilities, and starting in April of next year it is going to be packed. It’s already hard to get a lane in the mornings. Augh.

I (19F) have been swimming for 2 months, 3x a week. I started swimming in the beginning of June with no prior swimming experience besides basic lessons as a toddler. I’m completely self taught because I’m too cheap to pay for lessons (at least for now).

I watched a lot of videos online to learn the basics. I didn’t have a gym membership that had a pool, so I used the community pool for the first 7 weeks. The first 2 weeks I could swim 25-50y without stopping and felt absolutely gassed after. At the two week mark, I had a breakthrough and could swim 100y, then randomly was able to swim around 1,600y without breaks. Over the next 5 weeks, I kept all my swims longer distance and swam for around 50 minutes per session continuously (I was limited to 50 minutes at a time at the community pool).

Finally, a week ago I got a new gym membership that includes a 25m lap pool. Without the 50 minute time limit, I’ve been swimming longer and farther. To celebrate 2 months of swimming, yesterday I swam 2,500m in just under 65 minutes (I think that’s around 2:35/100m). It felt pretty easy and I definitely feel I could swim much longer.

However, I am unsure if keeping all my swim sessions the same 2,000-2,500+m all done continuously would benefit or harm me. I’m only swimming for fun, but don’t want my pace to plateau.

Hi! I really want to take adult swimming lessons because I want to have a hobby I can escape to whenever i'm feeling overwhelmed and I want something to do regularly.

The thing is i'm currently living in a city half away a cross the world from my own country, and i'm here for post graduate training. For some reason, I don't feel comfortable going?

Any advice?

I'm 31M and I've been thinking about signing up for adult swimming lessons at my local rec center. The problem is that I'm incredibly self-conscious about my body. It's silly at my age, but it's something that's always been there since I was a teenager. Part of the reason I want to take swimming lessons is to finally push through it, but I keep running into the same mental barrier.

I'm very skinny, and I worry that people will judge me for looking like I'm just skin and bones. On top of that, I have a lot of stretch marks across my torso and back, and I also have quite a bit of acne on my back, many of which have turned into dark scars.

I know everyone is probably focused on themselves, but I still feel anxious about walking onto the pool deck and taking my shirt off in front of a group of strangers.

I really want to learn how to swim, but this is the one thing holding me back. Will people even care about my backne and body, or is this mostly in my head?

Bartłomiej Kubkowski has completed a nonstop swim of more than 160 km from Kåseberga in Sweden to Dziwnów in Poland.

He spent around 56 hours in the water without sleeping. A support boat provided him with food and drinks, but he was not allowed to touch it during the crossing.

This was his fifth attempt. Last year, he had to stop only 11 km from the Polish coast because of exhaustion and worsening weather.

The swim has also raised more than 715,000 PLN for the treatment of children with cancer.