I went the other direction, swam in high school and after some other sports later on I decided to do weightlifting instead

now I'm just really fucking heavy, I can't float very well at all and if I exhale I sink like a stone. You may find this is your experience too

also bodybuilding != weightlifting, which is actually athletic

>>36632849
Do swimmers even track macros? I effortlessly eyeball pretty much everything i eat, but still.

>>36632883

no, not in my experience. Just eat a shitload of carbs, enough protein to recover, and fat generally kept within reasonable limits

eat more if you find yourself not gaining stamina, eat less if you find yourself getting fatter than you like

also unless you've been swimming for a while you're gonna be crap and nowhere near competitive

>>36632912
I reckon diet won't be an issue then. Btw, how many hours a week in the pool would be optimal?

>>36632820
You will never be competitive, deal with it. Swimming is like violin, if you dont pick it up early, you will never be top level.

Now that doesnt mean you cant reach a decent level, but you will never be competitive.

>>36632946

you're talking about becoming actually competitive at a high level then it doesn't really matter how much you do
at this stage your best bet is to swim as an alternative to lifting but you should be happy to make regionals. No reason you can't practice hard, but at the very least you'll need a coach to correct your stroke and give you a program. The program can vary but maybe you can find something online that replaces the time you spent in the gym - like 2 hours a day, 6 times a week

>>36632957
By competitive i meant taking part in triathlon and small thing, not olympic level.. and i couldn't disagree more with you, that mindset won't get you far my friend. I'm picking new instruments and languages at the age of 20, no fucks given

>>36633002
If your objective is triathlon then yeah, of course you can reach the required level.

Note: there are no swimmers in triathlon. Not a single one. The distance and time advantage you can get is just not significant enough to overcome the massive time advantage bikers and runner gets. True fact. I was a swimmer on the national level, and I can tell you that any other man my level would have won the ironman easily... the swimming part, that is. Triathletes are just not swimmers. They are outstanding athletes, dont get me wrong. Just not very good swimmers. If you aim for triathlon, get better on the bike and run, those win the race.

>>36633056
I don't intend to do the running, cycling and swimming all by myself. In my city some triathlons are made to be in groups of 3, so i'd only do the swimming.

>>36633056
this.

i've been swimming just for health for about 1.5 years now. often the triathletes come and train in the same pool (uni pool) and i'm lapping them all the time despite not even being that great


OP swimming takes a long time to get proficient. As I said I've been swimming for 1.5 years almost every single day for 1 hour +. That's a lot of time in the pool. I've also got the body for swimming, long arms, biggish hands and feet, wide shoulders. I've had many lessons to improve my technique as well. Even with all that, my 50m free time is only 30 seconds.

The slow rate of progress is very frustrating

>>36633133
Sure, we do have those around here also. I guess I just misunderstood what you meant by competitive.