Swimmers help! Carebear

[Dan G]

I was originally going to pm Carebear, but I figured you guys could help me too! Here's my story.
Pretty soon here I have to pass a PST (physical screening test) for the "rescue swimmer" portion of my Navy contract. Well its not the pst that I'm so worried about, as the basic requirements are pretty simple. The trouble is, I'm not a very good swimmer...:eusa_doh: I've had to bust my behind to get where I am, which is not that good. I'm terrified of the jumps. You know, the hovering helo jumps that make a rescue swimmer a rescue swimmer?

Through my lurking here for a while I've learned that Carebear is a Marine, along with some others that did time and like to swim and was hoping for some advise or techniques that really helped you guys get through some of this stuff. Thanks guys!

 

[Phil]

Lifeguard

I've always wanted to do the helicopter entry, but the closest I get is the tower chairs at the pool. The best I can tell you is keep your toes pointed down, fins or no fins (we use fins in the diving well area just to get up and down quickly) it'll make for a better entry and you won't break your ankles. Um, work fast and stay calm. Don't follow me as an example, this is what I learned personally. I'm not sure what they've taught you, but go by what you instructor says.

 

[Dan G]

oops, forgot to mention I'm delayed entry. I don't ship 'till July 31st, so I've got some time to work yet! Thank God, cause I need it.

 

[carebear]

Harp will have some SF info on this as well.

Just how uncomfortable are you in the water?

The key to spending time in the water is relaxation, relaxed people float, tense people sink. Relaxed people breathe normally and don't feel short of O2, even when they have to skip a breath or two due to wave action. Relaxed people move smoothly and don't tire as quickly, feeling tired can make you panic and tense up and hyperventilate and sink. Relaxation is the key.

The only way to get relaxed in the water, especially if you have a bit of fear of it, like I did (and do to a degree), is to spend serious time in the water. Get used to having your face wet and water getting in your mouth and eyes. Get used to having your eyes open underwater. Practice back floating and treading water for long periods of time, it's almost certainly part of your test anyway.

What strokes do you know?

The key to military swimming is not having mighty crawling arm muscles, it's developing a strong, smooth kick and glide. You can cover far more ground with a good kick than any arm stroke. So practice your kicks in the various strokes. The four we are taught are breast stroke, crawl, rescue backstroke and sidestroke. Remember, in the military we aren't all nice and streamlined in Speedos, if we're lucky we have a wetsuit for warmth and some floatation, otherwise you are often swimming in utilities (every pocket is a drag and sea anchor) and you may not even have fins. Rescue swimming is a bit different equipment-wise but I've made more than one beach insertion swimming through surf at night towing a loaded ruck wearing cammies and jungle boots. (not as fun as it sounds )

The Strokes:

The breast stroke is with the head/eyes out of the water so you can navigate and see your objective or victim. Work on that frog kick and just use your hands to pop up for a breath. Try not to splash a lot, the hands and feet should never break the surface.

The crawl is a crawl, it's for covering distance quickly. It is fast but inefficient and noisy and you really can't see right where you're going unless you have your head up. Use it for endurance training and wind sprints, I never used it much in the Marines for anything else.

The rescue backstroke is more of a propelled back float, the kick is kind of an eggbeater, drop the legs at the knees and flip your feet around and up, back together. Your back is arched a bit so you plane on the surface and can glide, your arms stay by your sides and just scull a little. It's a survival stroke for you to rest with, while still making headway, in between using one of the other strokes to cover distance.

For rescue swimming the money stroke is the sidestroke. Big scissors kicks can get you the length of the pool in just 2 or 3 kicks and your body is naturally positioned for a massive glide. The lower arm is used to pull forward when the legs are scissored apart at the end of the glide to keep you moving forward, but you really don't need to use your hands at all to swim...

...which is good because your upper hand will be busy, either towing a rucksack into the objective or towing your victim in by a wrist or crosschest carry. With a wrist tow you grasp the wrist and spin them face up then start towing them in. With a cross chest you reach over the vic's shoulder with your upper hand and grab his opposite pec. Arch your back to keep the victim's head up out of the water (which pushes yours down, yea! ) and try to float his upper body on top of yours, while kicking as strongly as you can to drag him to safety. Feel free to curse his dead weight.

The way we practice the side stroke is to get the kick down using both hands to stroke several lengths of the pool, then, as you improve, drag the upper hand in the water behind you. Take a few days to really get calm doing that. When you can kick and glide well with just the lower hand working and the upper dragging, hold the upper up out of the water and don't let it hit the surface for a pool length. When that gets easy, hold up something light, then get progressively heavier until you're carrying pool bricks (5-10 lbs) back and forth. Learn the stroke on both sides as you can rest by switching, sometimes you need to be facing one way or the other to see your objective.

If you can get the pool to give you permission, wear an old set of cammies, the increased drag will make you stronger and really make you focus on a strong kick.

I'd avoid using fins until you are confident and conditioned without them. fins get ripped off fairly frequently on helo or parachute inserts and there may not be time to get them back on. The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.

Feel free to chime in any real experts with anything I missed or got wrong.

 

[carebear]

As far as the insert goes, hold onto your mask and keep positive pressure in your nose. Water will want to get in there, even though you are holding on.

Keep your feet together if not actually crossed (it can get hard depending on what gear you've got on). Nothing like 40 degree water smacking you in the wake-ups like a bat. Mmmm, that's good training.

 

[Tomasso]

The secret to the crawl and backstroke is all in the hips. Once you figure that out, you can swim for miles and miles. Bilateral breathing and "sighting" (lifting your head out of the water to navigate during the crawl) are two of the most important, and difficult to master, open water swimming techniques. Like anything else, practice, practice, practice.


It's all in the hips. In fact, it's hard to name a technique used in any sport that doesn't rely on the hips to generate power. [huh]

 

[Dan G]

I'm pretty comfortable in the water, although I do tend to get panicky if I miss breaths and such.[huh]

My major trouble is technique. My recruiter has really been stressing my crawl and sidestroke. I've got a ways to go to get to 2 or 3 kicks! Right now I'm covering a 25 yard pool length in 13 strokes. My crawl is just absolutely miserable, more than a couple laps and I'm pretty stinkin tired.

They also tell me to work on my "combat" sidestroke, I'm not sure what the difference is?

What would you say an average time for covering 400 yards should be? My qualifying time is 11 minutes and I just barely have that beat! (I've never swam seriously until about two months ago, at which time I joined a gym with a pool and swim monday-thursday)

I'm stoked about the helo jumps but absolutely terrified as well. You're talking to the guy thats scared to jump ten feet into water.:eusa_doh: (Why I just had to be a rescue swimmer is beyond my conscious mind)

 

[carebear]

The secret to the crawl and backstroke is all in the hips. Once you figure that out, you can swim for miles and miles. Bilateral breathing and "sighting" (lifting your head out of the water to navigate during the crawl) are two of the most important, and difficult to master, open water swimming techniques. Like anything else, practice, practice, practice.


It's all in the hips. In fact, it's hard to name a technique used in any sport that doesn't rely on the hips to generate power. [huh]

Great point, I wasn't thinking in terms of finning.

 

[Dan G]

I'm not so clear on Bilateral breathing?:whistling Is it a technique in its own?

 

[carebear]

I'm not so clear on Bilateral breathing?:whistling Is it a technique in its own?

I'm not a "real" swimmer but in a standard crawl or backstroke you turn your head to breathe as your arm comes over, basically breathing into your armpit. Bilateral breathing allows you to breath on each arm stroke rather than breathing on the same side every other stroke.

I can't remember what my average times were, the only time it mattered was during quals so I just coasted to save energy for the harder parts. I was probably pretty slow.

I found a video of a "combat swimmer stroke". It wouldn't work for a rescue tow but it shows the big scissor kick/glide motion and timing. It isn't the formal military sidestroke I was taught, as you are still doing a nice big crawl stroke with one arm, but this might be what your recruiter is talking about.

http://stewsmith.com/linkpages/css.htm

 

[Dan G]

Sure you're a "real" swimmer. Put a pool swimmin pansy like me in the water with ruck and clothes and see how much he likes it!

I think the recruiter wants me to work on the "combat swim stroke" to make time. He seems to think its faster?

Just goes to show you how much I know about swimming... I've spent more time in the water because I fell in than because I wanted to be in!lol
Thanks for the clear up on bilateral breathing, thats kind of what I was thinking but then I got hit with the ignorance bat. I don't seem to know as much as I did at 16:eusa_doh:

Just out of curiosity, did you see the Navy deployed their first Riverine squadron since Vietnam? http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,128444,00.html

 

[carebear]

Bout time.

I understand the Cold War requirements and all, but I like the Navy traditions embodied in "The Wind and The Lion" and "The Sand Pebbles". Armed, trained sailors out there mixing it up in the estuaries and rivers.

I went through Jump School with some Special Boat guys, they were good to go.

 

[WH1]

Dan just remember to relax, concentrate on the task at hand, cross your legs, keep your shoulders square and tuck your chin when going off the high board. I was no great swimmer either but I managed to make 1st class without sucking up too much water. Always keep in mind the majority of what you do in the military is a mental drill and thousands if not millions of others have done it over the years. If they can do it so can you.

The Dam Security Unit in Iraq has been covered by the Marine Corps for the last few years, currently one of the sister companies from my battalion is at Haditha with that mission. My understanding is they will be replaced by the Navy in a few months. It is a tough job but very, very necessary. The Marine Corps Times recently had an excellent article on it. Attached is a video link. Worth the viewing.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/projects/2007_ramadi/070201_dam_ops/

I too have wondered why the navy did away with their brown water capability. By the end of Vietnam they were very effective. I went through a boat course at Del Mar back in the early 90's and we learned some of the techniques they had developed and they will always be useful in certain situations. I guess that is the nature of the beast we always forget and have to relearn/reinvent the wheel.

 

[NRay]

The key to spending time in the water is relaxation, relaxed people float, tense people sink...

Practice back floating and treading water for long periods of time, it's almost certainly part of your test anyway.

I definitely agree with this. If you have this problem:

I'm pretty comfortable in the water, although I do tend to get panicky if I miss breaths and such

You might want to take time out just to feel what it is like to float on the water. I've never served in the military, but I taught swimming lessons for a couple of years and learned a few things on the way.

First of all, if you miss a breath, just keep going, ignore it, maybe hold your breath until you should breath again or breath early, but don't take a break. I mess up all the time with my strokes and breathing, but I've learned that it shouldn't slow you down.

Second, one of the biggest problems that I saw with people (as a teacher) was their discomfort in the water. Although they seemed reasonably confident, something would always hold them back. A good way to gain confidence, as carebear said, is to work on floating.

Some techniques for floating would be to just get on your back in the water with your arms extended from your sides and legs extended (but kept together), hold your breath (seriously, don't breath) as long you can and try to float while your doing it. Stretch yourself out, don't bunch up, even if it means you will sink to the bottom. Pay attention to how you sink (or float) and you might begin to understand how your body acts in water.

Once you get used to this, try breathing while you float. A good way to do this is to lay on your back, stick your arms straight above your head, hands out of the water, with knees bent, and then breathing in using your lungs and diaghphram (they will act as ballasts). Your goal for this float is to not sink. This will once again help you to understand how your body acts in the water.

There are other floats that can be done, but I think that floating on your back is far better to build confidence because it isn't the natural way for a body to be in the water. Floating shouldn't be a replacement for a workout, but should supplement it, as it is a skill builder. When you can float well, missing a stroke or breathing at the wrong time shouldn't induce any kind of panic.

Otherwise, these guys have been giving some really great advice, and there isn't anything else I can think of that I can add to it. Good luck, and I hope that the PST goes well for you. Happy swimming!

 

[Dan G]

Hey thanks guys, believe it or not this is really helping out. This is good stuff and I'll gladly take anymore suggestions or ideas you guys have.

I too am stoked about the brown water Navy and it's definitely something I'd be interested in.

 

[Miss Crisplock]

Relaxing in Water

I grew up competively swimming, staring at the black line, and have forgotten most of what I knew about technique, but have logged a lot of hours in the water. Contrary to the modest "I'm not a swimmer" line, it sounds like there is a lot of expertise here.

However, I have a suggestion about relaxing in the water: There is a massage/therapy called WATSU (or dancing the body in water) that you might find helpful. I've done it on a casual basis to a couple of people and the results were great. The advanced version is Vassertansen. It's late, but please google and see if anybody does this in your area!

And live in the pool. That helps.

My .02 you milage may vary.