Pool etiquette

[Aircat]

I wonder, do escalators run in the opposite direction in Australia and the UK from how they run in other countries? Here when the up and down escalators are side by side you use the one on the right or else you’ll be walking up the down escalator.

Yes they do, though not always sometimes whoever does out just messes it up, they usually switch off at night so I guess a morning cleaner or guard is in charge. And some shops seem to try a tactic of increasing foot traffic past stores and displays by making them annoying.

Commonsense in any country to use the local road rules as the guideline for all movement.

[Aircat]

Not sure why apart from both people either side of a rope are swimming in the same direction.

Reduces collisions with breaststrokers (surprised PC havent banned the name yet) kicking out of lane.

[Aircat]

because as soon as I take my second or third breath it sets off my back (it tenses up)

You can roll right onto your side to breathe, rotate whole body head to toe as one piece.
Take a look at the Total Immersion stuff, it gets knocked by competitive swimming industry but has a place as a sort of yoga meditation mixed with swimming. It might help.

[swimmy]

There are freestyle drills to teach you that body rotation is your breathing motion, you put fins on and kick on your side with bottom arm forward, top arm back. Do a length on each side. You can breathe easily the whole way. Then use what you just learned to swim, use the kick to propel you adequately while your brain concentrates on what the arms, shoulders, head and lungs are doing. See why I teach proper kick first? You cannot swim until you learn how to kick PROPERLY.

[BJE]

I’ve been swimming most of my life but I only had swimming lessons as a kid and I only learned “freestyle” and back stroke. My swimming ability peaked in my thirties. I would generally swim a mile non stop. Then I went probably ten years without swimming much. I’ve been getting back into it in the last few years. Last spring I took an adult swim conditioning class at my fitness club. Most of those there were training for triathlon but there were a few very poor swimmers. While I didn’t make a fool of myself, I found it pretty hard to keep up. We would swim ten laps for a warm up and ten laps for a cool down. In between we did various drills. I did my best but to me ten laps is a workout not a warm up.

One of my biggest problems is that if I push off hard from the end or kick hard my feet cramp up and I have to stop and massage my feet and try to get rid of the muscle spasm.

I have always worn speedos and the occasional jammer when lap swimming. I don’t remember ever wearing swim shorts when lap swimming.