Getting My Feet Up Off The Pool Floor

Last year, it was my New Year's resolution to learn to swim; I feared water and gained confidence when I went Aqua Aerobics. I'm just worried that when I do learn with floats, I won't be able to get my feet off the floor. I'm fed up with excuses. I've got a burning desire to swim. Please help!

Well done for getting in the water and having a go at aqua aerobics. That is no mean feat when you have a fear of water. Aqua aerobics is great for getting used to the water and discovering a bit about how your body moves and behaves. However, it doesn’t teach you about floating, holding your breath and all the important stuff when learning how to swim.

As for getting your feet off the floor, believe it or not, that is not the scary part. The scary part is getting them back down and safely onto the pool floor again. Once you can do this, you will feel a little more confident about lifting your feet and trying some swimming.

Like most adult beginners, you will probably wonder about floating and how you float. This is all down to your body shape and composition. You will find that either you float easily or you do not float at all. Some people are good floaters, and some are not so. But even the bad floaters can learn to swim.

If you are a poor floater, remember that the human body does not sink like a stone. You will sink very slowly and gently, allowing some time to add arm pulls and leg kicks to help keep your body at or near the water's surface.

Your first exercise to try out is holding the poolside, better still, a trusty friend's hands, and lifting your feet off the floor. Then try bending your knees forwards under your body and placing your feet back on the floor again. You can do this with the security of holding something or someone, which will help massively regain a standing position again.

When you’re ready, you can then progress to holding the poolside and then letting go just as you stand up. You will have to use your arms and hands to pull down through the water to help to stand again. Doing it near the poolside will give you the added security of grabbing it if you need to.

For a clear diagram and explanation of how to regain a standing position, click here.

An absolute must for you to learn is holding your breath and putting your face in the water. Use some goggles, as this makes it a little easier. Once again, practice this whilst holding the poolside, breathing out into the water, lifting your face, taking another breath and then repeating the exercise. The more you do this, the more it will become second nature, and your fears will gradually disappear.

Once you have become confident with these two key elements of learning to swim, the rest is just a matter of what to do with your arms and legs, which is the easy part!

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Discover everything you need from first entering the pool and building confidence to floating and breathing. Plus, 82 exercises to master the four basic swimming strokes.(click here for an instant preview) 

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How To Build Confidence Swimming In 2m Deep End

I can swim 20 meters in the teaching pool but need encouragement to swim 25 meters in the main pool. I have this idea that I will sink once I finish swimming 20 meters of swimming, then I will sink once it gets deeper from 21-25m, which is about 1.75-2 meters deep!

I enjoy swimming much and would love to swim the full 25 meters length, but my confidence holds me back. I could swim the full 25 meters before Christmas!

Please help me motivate myself, and how would I build my confidence? I could swim on my back and do various rotations in 1.25m deep pools, but I don't have the confidence to do it in 25 meters long and 2m deep pool! Please help; I want to swim the entire 25m pool before the end of this year as my year-end resolution.Start At The Deep End And Swim To The Shallow End

A very simple thing to try is starting your swim from the pool's deep end. That way, when you reach 20 meters and begin to get tired or think you will sink, you will be in water of standing depth anyway.

That way, you can safely test your ability to swim 25 meters without stopping.

I recommend learning breaststroke to begin with, as it is the least energy consuming, and you can swim it with your head above the water surface.

Another way to test yourself is to swim 20 meters in your training pool, and when you reach the end, turn around and swim back again without touching the poolside or the pool floor. If you can swim back again, you have swum 40 meters without stopping.

Changing direction at the end without stopping will be tough, to begin with, but it will do wonders for your stamina and confidence because you can apply it to any swimming pool you swim in. The Water Depth Makes No Difference

For example, you can swim out into the middle of a pool, turn around and swim back again. If you can manage it several times confidently, then the depth of the water is irrelevant.

The depth of the water makes no difference to our buoyancy or ability to float. Just because the water is deeper does not make it more likely that we will sink.

Our ability to float in water of less than a meter deep is the same as our ability to float in water that is several miles deep. It makes no difference.

My ebook The Complete Beginners Guide To Swimming contains all the help and support you need, from relaxing, floating and breathing to all the technique tips for learning to swim the four basic strokes. Click here for an instant preview or click the link below for more information.

The Complete Beginners Guide To Swimming

The Complete Beginners Guide To Swimming

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