| Keri,
Some food for thought...
What are you swimming for?
If its to improve your swimming times in the GUE test, or waltz around the pool in front of school kids in a set of speedos, then join a swim club. ;-)
If its to get/stay fit, then remember that swimming fitness has very little carryover to other non swimming sports. This is why Lance Armstrong kicks ass on a bike, but can "only" run a marathon in 3 hours... Cardio vascular endurance is highly modal specific
If you want to develop swimming ability that may be useful in a 'stuck out at sea' scenario, then endless laps of a pool is the wrong thing to do.
If your at sea and you have to swim for it, your best option is to learn the combat swimmers side s-t-r-o-k-e with fins and mask on. This style will allow you to cover long distances with mask fins AND a drysuit. You can forget front crawl or breast s-t-r-o-k-e with a drysuit on. It gets very ugly after about 100m
The cardio vascular benefit of learning this s-t-r-o-k-e will be equal to doing laps of front crawl and may actually come in useful one day.
Hope this helps |