Garmin Swim watch.... New must have?
I just saw this little gem on the DC Rainmaker site. It has me very intrigued. I already have the 910xt and love swimming with it, but thought at $150 this could be a nice watch for the clorine to eat instead. Plus, no need to chage a battery, no GPS issues, wireless data transmission and a much smaller foot print on the wrist.
http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2012/06/garmin-swim-watch-in-depth-review.html
I will let you when it arrives....
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Jeezus...on our next ride I'll teach you my double top secret squirrel lap counting technique that has proven itself since 1979, no $150 watch required
Haha, I was waiting for Rich to chime in on this.
I know I'm a weak swimmer, so I don't need a fancy watch to tell me that
. I did however invest in a SportCount Lap Counter ($25, slightly overpriced IMO), since I can remember my laps to save my life. Actually, I think I only used it one or twice, and primarily for my swim RR.
In retrospect, there are even more cost-effective solutions...
HaHaHa...I've already ordered...should be recieving in a couple of weeks....will have to check my $100 week counter to confirm that though.
This is progress my friends.
Your powermeter for the pool. For $40, you can work on your cadence and your pace. Now, if Garmin were to integrate these features into 910xt AND my existing 310xt were to crap out, I might be interested, but I'd be hesitant for the same reasons Dino stated.
Clearly PnI are in the wrong business...
Anson, make that abacus out of carbon, water proof it and you can sell it for a 500% markup to triathletes
is that worth money for a 910, no. For the new garmin swim, maybe. Of course a $40 finis tempo time and a wall clock will allow me to do the same thing, but then I don't get cool graphs and charts to look at.
I value cool graphs and charts. And I value data I can easily upload so it is easily usable for comparing workouts and tracking progress. So I paid for a 910xt and I love it. And I'll probably get a Garmin Swim at some point too. With "some point" being really soon.........
Carbon abacus! Put me on the wait list now!!!
But, seriously, a question for everyone: why would you let yourself zone out during a long swim?
Practice doesn't make perfect.
Perfect practice makes perfect.
Focus!
Having a device that does some of the work for you in terms of counting and timing sets frees you of distractions and allows you to focus more on your stroke, if anything.
Yes, counting and timing are not that difficult simply maintaining a count in your head and using the wall clock / lap timer, but I can guarantee you it frees additional mental bandwidth (at least for people who weren’t pool slaves like Rich growing up) having a device such as the Garmin cited above.
As far as the general comment of zoning out, my comments were intended to be more humorous than serious, although I believe there is certainly a grain of truth to them. You cannot think yourself into having a proper stroke. Focus alone doesn't kick bad habits or cement good ones. You can't be a good swimmer out of force of sheer determination alone.
Proper form comes from practice and experience, advice and conscious efforts help certainly, but ultimately it needs to be a seamless and natural extension, not an awkward and forced motion. IMHO, once swimming begins to feel more natural and less forced, I'm more likely to mess it up by over-thinking it than simply persisting in the state of flow.
@Anson,
A logical argument however I definitely disagree in my experience. I have not been swimming more than a few years, but the vast majority of that time I did not have any of these fancy devices either, nor did I feel any particular need to have them based on the type of swimming I was doing, predominately masters.
I found that swimming in groups, such as masters, was more mentally stimulating since you are sort of caught up in the group dynamic. Yet I never seemed to make significant improvements in my stroke. I was too focused on trying to keep up and consistently swimming beyond my abilities to maintain proper form. If anything, I got worse at swimming as I cemented bad habits, but dangerously masked my degrading form with improved fitness. The result in the end was the same though, stagnation.
Things started to change when I stopped swimming with masters and swam alone where I could slow. down. When I slowed down I could focus deliberately on my stroke and being comfortable in the water. I also needed to make a commitment to simply spend more time in the pool. Not necessarily monster sessions, but just more consistency in general in terms of the number of days I'm in the water. I've always found a pretty good correlation between the frequency of my swimming and how natural the act of swimming feels.
The end result of all of this was that I was / am making a commitment to improve my swim. This requires me to spend more time in the pool, and more importantly more time in the pool doing my own thing and blocking external distractions. The MP3 player and the watch and all that are just part of me creating my own insulated environment where I can focus on my needs and my workout without being distracted by everything else that is going on in the pool.
I suppose I should also disclaim that I'm fairly positive that I am also undiagnosed ADHD. I wear noise cancelling headphones and have to have my own controlled source of music/white noise/ whatever to block out the general sounds of the office in order for me to get practically anything done. So perhaps my approach is only particularly suited for my own handicapped style of cognition
Yep, I've seen folks like ya'll:
Show up at the Rose Bowl with your mushroom farmer tan, and your mesh bag full of fins, bouys, paddles, cords, your .mp3 headphones, 4 counting watches on your wrist, bottle(s) of Gatorade on the deck, your swim workout printed neatly in a baggy
Me: 2 x blown out swim suits, goggles from the lost and found, snag a buoy from the bin, and circle swim at all times to keep the rec swimmers out of my lane, can count distances, sets, get my splits on a breath into or off the wall, and never stop on the wall for longer than about 15secs
Old skool swimming product of the 70s and 80s,
Coach Dick is a Swimmer and a Cyclist
@ Trevor: Those are great points, thanks! I can totally relate to you in how swimming with a masters club wasn't the best fit for me. My form and technique weren't up to par, and all I could really do was chase people in my lane without really improving my mechanics. Great workout, but not terribly productive in making me a better swimmer. I certainly enjoyed the group dynamic though, and I'll defintiely consider going back once I have my technique up to a reasonable standard.
I guess I should add to what I wrote earlier. I too need to spend more time in a pool, and perhaps having an MP3 player of some sort would help in keeping me motivated. I guess we differ in that music tends to be distracting to me when I'm trying to focus on details, but maybe I'll reward myself onceI start seeing improvements in my form.
Coach R hates gadgets. I get it. He walks to the pool uphill both ways and uses an old 2 liter bottle as a scuba tank. I love gadgets! I am not a bad person. I just have addictions. Its a disease. Some urges you gotta fight, others you gotta give in to. I choose gadgets!!!!
Also, no update from Amazon yet, but Garmin Swim should ship later this month.....
I'm with everyone that says anything that makes long pool swims easier and relaxing...Plus alllows me to download data..without scribbling on a wet notepad by the pool and is relatively cheap...sounds good to me...mine is supposed to ship on the 20th.
I also had a Finis SwiMp3 waterproof mp3 ...which was very very nice....
...there will always be luddites.
Yes, a 1000y steady is different then 10x100 hard.
I do know that Race Day Apollo will have support for downloading swim data and calculating scores added in a future release. My guess is once one company adds it, others will follow as well. However, my guess Training Peaks will add it to the online version and will probably not update WKO.
On line does provide some bang for the buck. I just like it more than WKO, because I gotta drag out an old PC laptop to use WKO and it looks really windows 3.1-ish. TP online works with my Mac and does everything I need and then some... From any computer with an internet connection.