All posts filed under: body

Dry-land Exercises for Swimmers: Breaststroke

Help your body to develop muscles so the muscles will help you to swim longer and faster. Together with  Kamishi Swimming School we prepared a wonderful set of dryland exercises for swimmers that  they usually provide to their BREASTSTROKE swimmers. It is a selection of exercises from Swimming Anatomy book by Ian McLeod. All of them you can do at the GYM. ARMS Standing Double-Arm Triceps Pushdown With Rope This exercise is good for every type of stroke, but especially for breaststroke. It mimics the final portion of the underwater pull performed off the start and each turn wall. “In the starting position your hands are at your midline. As the elbows are extended, the hands pull the ends of the ropes outward so that when the elbows are almost locked the hands are shoulder-width apart”. Barbell Biceps Curl This exercise also enhances the second half of the pull phase during breaststroke. Execution 1 . Grasp the bar using an underhand grip. Your hands should be spaced shoulder-width apart. 2 . Without leaning back, curl the bar toward your chest …

Swim and Travel

I love combining tourism with swimming. Last year I swam the 6.5 km Bosphorus race (read more here) and enjoyed Istanbul’s beautiful scenery from the water. Next year, I am planning to explore England and swim the 14 km Bridge to Bridge, one of Henley Swim’s annual events. This article is about Swedish swim competitions that you can combine with exploring Stockholm– one of Scandinavia’s capital cities, and arguably known as “the Venice of the North.”  Swim and Travel Stockholmssimmet Stockholmssimet is a new swim competition, premiering this year. The event is organized by the same people who brought you the craziness of “Tough Viking”. In Stockholmssimmet, you have an option of two different distances, either 1 km or 3.3 km. Oxana and I swam the 3.3 km, and it was amazing! Swimmers start from Stockholm’s marine museum and finish in the middle of the Royal National City Park, which was just where we wanted to be on a sunny Sunday morning. One downside with this race was a lack of organization, probably due to the fact …

A Perfect Pair of Goggles

Every swimmer knows that it takes years to find the perfect pair of goggles. When you do find them, you need to buy out the store (either physically or online) where you found them; at least ten pairs! That way, you know you are safe in case they stop manufacturing that model. Sounds a little crazy, doesn’t it? All swimming shops are packed with different types of goggles, but they are all, well, crap. The price tag is no indication of protection from crap. In fact, my experience has been that the more expensive the goggles, the less useful they are. These are the absolute best ones I found that work for me: Swedish Goggles Malmsten. This brand is similar to IKEA in that you get a package with parts which you put together yourself, resulting in the perfect pair of goggles. The invention of these goggles has a very interesting history. Over thirty-five years ago, the famous Swedish swimming coach, Tommy Malmsten, was training a very promising swimmer, Ann-Sofi Roos. Roos suffered from very sensitive skin …

Best Swimming Pools in the Stockholm Region

We spend so much time in Stockholm’s swimming pools with NO FEAR Swim Kamishi swimming school that we feel the need to tell you the truth about them. We consider pools that are best suited for: Training Spending time with kids Our absolute favorites are: All year round Sundbyberg Simhall Bergaliden 1, 172 77 Sundbyberg (Pros) Sundbyberg Simhall has been completely renovated and extended. The facility is very clean, comfortable, and spacious. There are two training pools, each twenty-five meters in length (one with adjustable floor), as well as a kid’s pool and a baby pool. The baby pool was designed by Swedish sculptor Backa Carin Ivarsdotter (see picture above). Overall, the facility is very kid-friendly. It is even possible to sunbathe there during the summer time. The personnel are a friendly, great team. In addition to having among the lowest admission prices in city, the facility includes a gym. (Cons) If you are training, they tend to group two lines in one, and ask you to swim in Swedish “motionsim”, which means that you have to swim …

Juica – to buy or not to buy expensive juice detox?

People are always looking for a new magic diet or some other tool that will help them to lose weight fast without spending time exercising or properly monitoring their nutrition. Sites like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook are bursting with before-and-after pictures of people who have gone on a juice or tea detox. Juicing, or a short detox regimen comprised exclusively of fruit and/or vegetable juices, is especially popular during the summer. As such, so-called ‘juicing’ is big business around the world. This concept is especially popular in the fast-paced corporate cultures of the USA and Russia. Many busy professionals may not have enough time to make or stick to healthy eating plans, but have money to pay for two or three days of a juice detox program delivered straight to their home or office. Typically, the juices consumed as part of a juicing regimen are healthy, raw and not pasteurized. There’s also generally no added sugar, which means most of the juices have a very short shelf-life, usually a maximum of five days.   Juica …

Detox Spa Water: recipes and benefits

If you are like me, and you like tasty juices, fruits and berries, but you try to limit the amount of sugar you consume, then you will definitely like my recipe for fruit-infused water. We often hear that we need to drink at least two liters of water per day. To tell you truth, I do not really enjoy drinking plain, tasteless water all day long, so fruit-infused water is a very good alternative. Lemon water is the best. There are a lot of benefits to lemon detox spa water consumption. For instance, lemons contain pectin fiber, which assists in fighting hunger cravings. Drinking lemon water can also help boost your immune system. The antioxidants in lemon juice are known to reduce blemishes, wrinkles, and other skin issues. Lemon water will also boost your metabolism if you will drink a glass of it every morning about thirty minutes before breakfast! Just a few of the must-have ingredients for detox spa water recipes are: strawberries, cucumbers, lemons, oranges, mint, kiwi, blueberries, raspberries, and watermelon. Simply combine …

Stockhomssimmet: excitement and cold!

“You can do this. You can do this. Fuck, it’s cold. I can’t really feel my feet. You can do this. You can do this. Ok. we are going to turn around now and then it’s going to be easier with the current. Jeese…Why does not it get better? Ok. I am just gonna slow down and swim on my back. Just breathe.” That is approximately what was going in my mind during today’s swim. The weather was beautiful: one of this rare in Stockholm warm days with sunshine and cloudless sky. A perfect day for a long swim in Djurgårdsbrunnskanalen. Me and Anna got there on our bikes, the race wasn’t big, just around 200 people for both the 3,3 km distance(that we were doing) and the shorter 1,1 km stretch. I was feeling great. Until the moment I got into the water. It. was. cold. It felt like the Atlantic ocean in Cape Town. It kind of tickles your feet and you have an urge to get out (at least I do). – …

Stockholmssimmet tomorrow: excitement and fear!

UPDATE: We did it! Read how it went here: Stockholmssimmet: we did it! Tomorrow is the main event of this swimming season for us. We are swimming the Stockholmssimmet 3,3 km race. Me and Anna(NordA) are starting at 11:00 at the Maritime museum. Come and support us or just check out for results here tomorrow. Not everything went as planned this training season. Work and family challenges, weather (it has been raining and storming the entire summer in Stockholm), all those excuses we always have. But now is the time to put ourselves to work. I am actually terrified. This is going to be the longest open water swim for me to this date. Anna has swam across the Bosphorus last year, which is 6 km, while I have done done my first open water race last year, which was just 1,6 km. And even that was challenging and did not leave me too happy about my speed.  I was fighting with the current, waves, my own fear. I have since then swam in Greece(nice and warm) and …

How Can I Improve My Crawl?

Crawl. It’s the fastest, most majestic, and most difficult of all strokes. So why on earth does it look so easy for experienced swimmers? Why can’t YOU glide through 25 meters effortlessly like the person in the lane next to you? I wish I had quick-fix solution for you but I don’t. In fact, it is a step-by-step, stroke-by-stroke process that will teach you to move through the water with minimal effort. Technique Technique, technique, technique. That’s what any coach will drill into your head during training sessions. Having the right technique is key to NOT getting tired too quickly, NOT losing your breath and NOT struggling to swim faster, longer. Check out this video by Speedo–it’s the best one I’ve seen so far. Watch the videos and follow the instructions. Or better yet, sign up for a swimming course… or hire a swimming coach to cover the basics. Without the fundamentals, you might be swimming in-place for the rest of your life 🙂 f you practice on your own, remember to focus on every …

Tattoo for Swimmers – Passion Statement.

Maybe not that healthy, but sometimes we just need  a statement.  I do not have a tattoo yet… So I started to look through possibilities and here what I found. Really inspirational for swimming lovers, so cute and funny! Ideas of tattoo for swimmers! One day I’ll make one of these passion statements! Do you love swimming this much?