12 ms·

Just finished swimming a race from Alcatraz to shore, it's just the best high. I do tons of endurance sports, but swimming is the most reliable in yielding that

by entee 7y ago

Just finished swimming a race from Alcatraz to shore, it's just the best high. I do tons of endurance sports, but swimming is the most reliable in yielding that euphoric feeling. I think it's due to it being essentially forced mindfulness meditation. Though you could swim with music, I don't and that means it's just my thoughts for 30-60 min (watch the thoughts, can't do anything about them right now). I'm forced to focus on breathing on a set schedule (analogous to vipassana techniques). I'm moving my whole body in a way that requires balance, complex coordination and attention to what my body is feeling (analogous to body-scans, yoga). If you're not listening to music it's also a little like sensory deprivation, there's just neutral water rushing sound. I know running and biking can get there for some (myself included occasionally), but on a pool swim there's nothing to worry about other than the occasional turnaround at the wall. No obstacles, no dodging others on the sidewalk, no traffic. You're in a controlled, safe environment. That or maybe it's just the hypoxia ;)

iamgopal 7y ago
That just gave me an idea of circular swimming pool.
- hjk05 7y ago
  They exist and they are very annoying compared to regular old 50m lanes. You end up having to constantly overcompensate to one side (obviously) but also you suddenly have to either burn in a constant bias to your technique (bad) or be constantly aware of the boundaries, which ruins the normal flow of pool swimming. They are fun for families and kids who only ever do one or a half round, but if you like swimming just stick to traditional pools.
  - amelius 7y ago
    I once saw a documentary about a fish farm where they had tanks where fish were forced to swim in circles. Probably not the most fish friendly environment.
  - delibes 7y ago
    How about a pool in a rotating orbital space station? Just keep swimming forwards and slightly uphill :) Just don't lose the fake G or you could be the first person to drown in space.
    - vl 7y ago
      It’s never uphill though, while rotating “halo” looks like it bends upwards, force-wise it feels flat.
    - nradov 7y ago
      That was a plot point in the movie "Passengers".
  - loeber 7y ago
    So, clearly the solution should be a figure-eight swimming pool? Where 1/3 of the time you're going straight, 1/3 overcorrecting left, 1/3 right
    - ThrustVectoring 7y ago
      No, the solution is to move the water and have the swimming equivalent of a treadmill. NB: this already actually exists, only remember seeing it in a video at some point though.
      - dredmorbius 7y ago
        "Endless Pool".
      - frakkingcylons 7y ago
        They have this at the main Google campus in MTV
      - WalterBright 7y ago
        That's true. The motivation for the swimmer is to not get sucked into the intake. I can hear the coach laughing maniacally as he turns the speed up to 11.
      - rurban 7y ago
        It's called a river. I do a lot if river swimming, but you need to live in a country with clean rivers. But swimming in lakes is more fun and better for your technique.
      - tsbinz 7y ago
        You probably saw it in person as well, it's called a river :) In Zurich there's multiple places where you can swim in the Limmat, and it takes quite some effort to stay in place - one example is https://images.app.goo.gl/qTASdR51yDTiCk299 https://images.app.goo.gl/qTASdR51yDTiCk299 (of course you could go without the installation but this allows people to use it that would be afraid of getting carried away ...)
  - devons 7y ago
    Interesting - do you know if the negative effects of circular swimming pool affect fish hatcheries? (fish are forced to swim against current) If I had to guess, I'd say not as much b/c of the size of the fish.
    - oflannabhra 7y ago
      Most fish farms force fish to swim through a current of running water. I think most are concrete “runs” that continuously pump water through. At least what I’ve seen in the US is that way. There are now many overseas fish farms.
  - LanceH 7y ago
    Regular pool, open two lanes, swim laps (up one lane, down the other). It's done with two lanes, so there is enough room to pass. I've seen it done this way several places.
    - hjk05 7y ago
      I’m confused as to what you are suggesting here? Normally you swim right side of the lane and turn going back on the “left side”, with room to pass on the inside unless the lane is filled with two many people. What does using two lanes add, except ruining your turns?
  - ec109685 7y ago
    If the pool was long enough, that wouldn’t be an issue. Thanks for the excellent post.
- amelius 7y ago
  A similar idea is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolation_tank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolation_tank
- entee 7y ago
  There are also swimming "treadmills". I experienced a water jet a long time ago and it was ok, but I think these are a bit more sophisticated. These could be cool, never been in one though. https://www.endlesspools.com/ https://www.endlesspools.com/ Edit: Looked into them, they're pretty cool. You can option them with a mirror on the bottom to do form work, they take up far less space than a real pool and the fastest can sustain a pace of 51s/100yard which is very very quick.
- ISL 7y ago
  Don't forget open-water swimming. Swimming is transformed without walls.
Existenceblinks 7y ago
Many sports, each has such nice exercise stratagem. Even though swimming is my most favorite since I've been swimming for decade, cycling: the most enjoyment of scenery, 26km (how I do per day) gives you a lot of different views; mountain, river, road, smell of air along the ways. These are also good for brain. basketball: it just nicely exercises agility, muscle memory (imagine you nail it 10/10 shooting continually, how nice the muscle is!), reactivity, quick decision making as a team. table tennis: it is incredible how you can control the small ball in very fast interaction, in very small area (table). Little skills you gain from this is mind-blowing to me. I play a lot of other sports, I'm very satisfied what my body can do, and breaking current limit is also fun.
- rurban 7y ago
  I tried most, but eventually settled with surfing and table tennis. Running broke my hips, cycling is too expensive and dangerous, and I got tired of swimming. Too boring. I only do a long distance race once a year on our river, which is fun.
  - Existenceblinks 7y ago
    Many sports are at best when we were young with friends doing the same activities. And yes, it's boring when we are adult now. Treat it as regular eating, showering, although it's more effort, it's just boringly good, sometimes it's fun. They are just activities that our body need every day, otherwise our body is vulnerable to whatever pains. Any sport that's good for you is great. (Not a big fan of running either, but jogging in the morning is quite nice)
nradov 7y ago
Congratulations on finishing the race! Have you seen the documentary "Kim Swims" about the first woman to swim from the Farallon Islands to San Francisco?
- entee 7y ago
  No but I'll look it up! That's a crazy, crazy swim.
AtlasBarfed 7y ago
Triathlons: Swimming is the sea Cycling is the air Running is the earth You learn to appreciate and respect them all. Swimming is birth: thrown into an unfamiliar environment, you struggle to find your way Cycling is youth/midlife: You have your footing, now you speed through life with ease Running is old age: slower than you were in your prime, you learn persistence as your body weakens.
- Engineering-MD 7y ago
  I feel your analogy needs a fourth sport to complete the 4 elements. But what sport would be represented by fire? Perhaps competitive shooting (gunpowder=fire)
  - jjtheblunt 7y ago
    Maybe the participant is the fire, interacting with the three other elements?
  - maaaats 7y ago
    This year I'm doing a "Swedish Classic", which is 4 long distance races throughout the year. Three of them are the classics in triathlon, but the fourth is cross country skiing (or "nordic skiing"). So the opposite of fire, hmm, but could maybe say that fire is what makes it possible to traverse 90km of mountains in the winter.
  - User23 7y ago
    Biathlon is ice and fire.
  - agumonkey 7y ago
    Martial Arts Kata comes to mind. Explosive.
  - Existenceblinks 7y ago
    How about swimming in an onsen swimming pool (make one if not exist)? I used to do a mini triathlon, it feels like hell already!
SkyMarshal 7y ago
Swimming is the lowest impact on your body too. Anything involving running includes frequent jolts to ankles/knees/hips/lower back. Cycling on standard bicycles concentrates pressure on your genitals and the nerve-dense region areas around them, and puts some pressure on the lower back. Swimming can cause unique injuries to shoulders if your form isn't right, but otherwise is very smooth and low-impact.
- caminante 7y ago
  I was surprised to learn from a friend that he needed shoulder surgery due to swimming exercise. Can you share any resources or personal thoughts for maintaining form that avoids injury?
  - alimw 7y ago
    I hope there's a good answer to this. At the moment my solution is to not do crawl.
    - michaelg7x 7y ago
      I read a blog of someone preparing for a 24-hour swim around one of the Swiss lakes and he was explaining about how it's important to get the reach and catch right. I understood this to mean getting your body rotation, shoulder and slightly-bent, extended arm into the most mechanically advantageous position. I imagine that this minimises "difficult" stresses on the shoulder joint. I'm trying to implement this without a trainer and it seems not to be irritating my (unrelated) shoulder injury.
      - michaelg7x 7y ago
        It may have been somewhere on this (http://reminiscencesofalongdistanceswimmer.blogspot.com http://reminiscencesofalongdistanceswimmer.blogspot.com) blog
  - entee 7y ago
    Generally for freestyle you want to follow these rules to avoid shoulder injury: 1.) Don't cross the center line of your body with your arm. If you were climbing a ladder you wouldn't ever do that. Freestyle is kind of like climbing a ladder horizontally. 2.) Keep a good rotation around your center line in the upper body. This helps to use your back muscles/lats to do the big work. You want to be sore at the end of the workout in your lats, core and maybe chest. Not your shoulders. 3.) Don't over-extend your arm in reach. Many people end up pushing down on the water they initiate their stroke, this is wasted work and also shoulder strain. You want to as quickly as possible have your hand pulling parallel to your body, which usually means a high, wide elbow in the catch. This is a course I've been meaning to try but haven't. It purports to reduce shoulder injuries: https://www.swimsmooth.com https://www.swimsmooth.com This is the current view on how to initiate your pull: https://www.triswimcoach.com/high-elbow-catch/ https://www.triswimcoach.com/high-elbow-catch/
alimw 7y ago
> That or maybe it's just the hypoxia ;) Or a kind of mild hypothermia? I've experienced your "euphoric feeling" during and after swims in cooler water. Google tells me the water temperature in San Francisco Bay is about fourteen degrees Celsius.
- zizee 7y ago
  > Hypoxia is a condition in which the body or a region of the body is deprived of adequate oxygen supply at the tissue level. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoxia_(medical) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoxia_(medical)
  - throwaway2019G 7y ago
    Read the actual comment.
Pimpus 7y ago
You should look into aquatic ape theory, it might explain why we feel so good when we swim. One of the ideas is that swimming required us to develop breath control, which was a prerequisite for developing speech.
_the_inflator 7y ago
Swimming is a potential deadly sport - you could drown. With this in mind, I learned the technical aspects of swimming which forced me to focus on the here and now. If you are not focussed you make mistakes which can lead to swallowing water. I did this in order to swim longer and faster. I finally grasped the highly meditational aspect of swimming and enjoy it. Even though I prefer running over swimming nothing comes close to swimming in regards to meditation.
205guy 7y ago
I must put in a word for my favorite sport: week-long solo backpacking. Meditation, frustration, overcoming, self-reliance, singing at the top of your lungs, not speaking for days, exhaustion, mental challenge, pushing yourself, scenery and more scenery, plenty hypoxia too. Bonus euphoria for some high summits, sleeping under the stars, catching your own food, not being eaten by predators, swimming in frozen lakes, etc. Use hiking poles for full-body workout, go off-trail for some mental exercise, push your boundaries and immerse yourself for days on end.
- jraby3 7y ago
  That sounds amazing but I’d be terrified to attempt this. Any good beginner resources you recommend?
  - cmurf 7y ago
    Join a club, e.g. Colorado Mountain Club. You can rent gear for starters. Good backpacking gear is expensive and it's continuously getting better, so renting is totally sane and you probably come out ahead until you're going often. You could start by going with people doing a gear checkout, quick overnighter, not too far from their car. Do at least a basic first aid course, consider more formal wilderness training, also available through the club.
balabaster 7y ago
In my years I've been a keen swimmer and cyclist. When I'm pool swimming, I don't usually get that euphoric high until the cool air of outside hits me in the face as I'm leaving the building. The harder I swam, the higher the high, but it never hits me until the outside air hits my lungs. It's incomparable. When I'm on my bike, I reach that same meditative trance. It's just the road, the pain in my legs and lungs and the focus on getting to the end of my ride, little by little, kilometre by kilometre. Everything else just falls away. My problems don't matter when I'm on my bike. The pain ensures that my focus is occupied and I'm present. Completely present. When I reach the end of my ride and fall from my bike because my legs won't carry me, the high comes as I lay trying to catch my breath. There may be something to your observation that it could be related to hypoxia. Either way, the high is real.
cryptozeus 7y ago
How did you find the Alcatraz race ? Was water too cold ? I would love to do this but bit scared about shark attack lol ( i know there are no sharks in bay)
- nradov 7y ago
  Water temperature is about 58°F / 14°C. With a decent wetsuit the water temperature will be fine for most everyone, although the real tough swimmers go without. There are sharks in the Bay, mostly leopard sharks which aren't dangerous to people. At times there may be a few great white sharks as well but you'll probably never see one.

by entee 7y ago

iamgopal 7y ago

That just gave me an idea of circular swimming pool.

hjk05 7y ago
They exist and they are very annoying compared to regular old 50m lanes. You end up having to constantly overcompensate to one side (obviously) but also you suddenly have to either burn in a constant bias to your technique (bad) or be constantly aware of the boundaries, which ruins the normal flow of pool swimming. They are fun for families and kids who only ever do one or a half round, but if you like swimming just stick to traditional pools.
- amelius 7y ago
  I once saw a documentary about a fish farm where they had tanks where fish were forced to swim in circles. Probably not the most fish friendly environment.
- delibes 7y ago
  How about a pool in a rotating orbital space station? Just keep swimming forwards and slightly uphill :) Just don't lose the fake G or you could be the first person to drown in space.
  - vl 7y ago
    It’s never uphill though, while rotating “halo” looks like it bends upwards, force-wise it feels flat.
  - nradov 7y ago
    That was a plot point in the movie "Passengers".
- loeber 7y ago
  So, clearly the solution should be a figure-eight swimming pool? Where 1/3 of the time you're going straight, 1/3 overcorrecting left, 1/3 right
  - ThrustVectoring 7y ago
    No, the solution is to move the water and have the swimming equivalent of a treadmill. NB: this already actually exists, only remember seeing it in a video at some point though.
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      "Endless Pool".
    - frakkingcylons 7y ago
      They have this at the main Google campus in MTV
    - WalterBright 7y ago
      That's true. The motivation for the swimmer is to not get sucked into the intake. I can hear the coach laughing maniacally as he turns the speed up to 11.
    - rurban 7y ago
      It's called a river. I do a lot if river swimming, but you need to live in a country with clean rivers. But swimming in lakes is more fun and better for your technique.
    - tsbinz 7y ago
      You probably saw it in person as well, it's called a river :) In Zurich there's multiple places where you can swim in the Limmat, and it takes quite some effort to stay in place - one example is https://images.app.goo.gl/qTASdR51yDTiCk299 https://images.app.goo.gl/qTASdR51yDTiCk299 (of course you could go without the installation but this allows people to use it that would be afraid of getting carried away ...)
- devons 7y ago
  Interesting - do you know if the negative effects of circular swimming pool affect fish hatcheries? (fish are forced to swim against current) If I had to guess, I'd say not as much b/c of the size of the fish.
  - oflannabhra 7y ago
    Most fish farms force fish to swim through a current of running water. I think most are concrete “runs” that continuously pump water through. At least what I’ve seen in the US is that way. There are now many overseas fish farms.
- LanceH 7y ago
  Regular pool, open two lanes, swim laps (up one lane, down the other). It's done with two lanes, so there is enough room to pass. I've seen it done this way several places.
  - hjk05 7y ago
    I’m confused as to what you are suggesting here? Normally you swim right side of the lane and turn going back on the “left side”, with room to pass on the inside unless the lane is filled with two many people. What does using two lanes add, except ruining your turns?
- ec109685 7y ago
  If the pool was long enough, that wouldn’t be an issue. Thanks for the excellent post.
amelius 7y ago
A similar idea is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolation_tank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolation_tank
entee 7y ago
There are also swimming "treadmills". I experienced a water jet a long time ago and it was ok, but I think these are a bit more sophisticated. These could be cool, never been in one though. https://www.endlesspools.com/ https://www.endlesspools.com/ Edit: Looked into them, they're pretty cool. You can option them with a mirror on the bottom to do form work, they take up far less space than a real pool and the fastest can sustain a pace of 51s/100yard which is very very quick.
ISL 7y ago
Don't forget open-water swimming. Swimming is transformed without walls.

Existenceblinks 7y ago

Many sports, each has such nice exercise stratagem. Even though swimming is my most favorite since I've been swimming for decade, cycling: the most enjoyment of scenery, 26km (how I do per day) gives you a lot of different views; mountain, river, road, smell of air along the ways. These are also good for brain. basketball: it just nicely exercises agility, muscle memory (imagine you nail it 10/10 shooting continually, how nice the muscle is!), reactivity, quick decision making as a team. table tennis: it is incredible how you can control the small ball in very fast interaction, in very small area (table). Little skills you gain from this is mind-blowing to me. I play a lot of other sports, I'm very satisfied what my body can do, and breaking current limit is also fun.

rurban 7y ago
I tried most, but eventually settled with surfing and table tennis. Running broke my hips, cycling is too expensive and dangerous, and I got tired of swimming. Too boring. I only do a long distance race once a year on our river, which is fun.
- Existenceblinks 7y ago
  Many sports are at best when we were young with friends doing the same activities. And yes, it's boring when we are adult now. Treat it as regular eating, showering, although it's more effort, it's just boringly good, sometimes it's fun. They are just activities that our body need every day, otherwise our body is vulnerable to whatever pains. Any sport that's good for you is great. (Not a big fan of running either, but jogging in the morning is quite nice)

nradov 7y ago

Congratulations on finishing the race! Have you seen the documentary "Kim Swims" about the first woman to swim from the Farallon Islands to San Francisco?

entee 7y ago
No but I'll look it up! That's a crazy, crazy swim.

AtlasBarfed 7y ago

Triathlons: Swimming is the sea Cycling is the air Running is the earth You learn to appreciate and respect them all. Swimming is birth: thrown into an unfamiliar environment, you struggle to find your way Cycling is youth/midlife: You have your footing, now you speed through life with ease Running is old age: slower than you were in your prime, you learn persistence as your body weakens.

Engineering-MD 7y ago
I feel your analogy needs a fourth sport to complete the 4 elements. But what sport would be represented by fire? Perhaps competitive shooting (gunpowder=fire)
- jjtheblunt 7y ago
  Maybe the participant is the fire, interacting with the three other elements?
- maaaats 7y ago
  This year I'm doing a "Swedish Classic", which is 4 long distance races throughout the year. Three of them are the classics in triathlon, but the fourth is cross country skiing (or "nordic skiing"). So the opposite of fire, hmm, but could maybe say that fire is what makes it possible to traverse 90km of mountains in the winter.
- User23 7y ago
  Biathlon is ice and fire.
- agumonkey 7y ago
  Martial Arts Kata comes to mind. Explosive.
- Existenceblinks 7y ago
  How about swimming in an onsen swimming pool (make one if not exist)? I used to do a mini triathlon, it feels like hell already!

SkyMarshal 7y ago

Swimming is the lowest impact on your body too. Anything involving running includes frequent jolts to ankles/knees/hips/lower back. Cycling on standard bicycles concentrates pressure on your genitals and the nerve-dense region areas around them, and puts some pressure on the lower back. Swimming can cause unique injuries to shoulders if your form isn't right, but otherwise is very smooth and low-impact.

caminante 7y ago
I was surprised to learn from a friend that he needed shoulder surgery due to swimming exercise. Can you share any resources or personal thoughts for maintaining form that avoids injury?
- alimw 7y ago
  I hope there's a good answer to this. At the moment my solution is to not do crawl.
  - michaelg7x 7y ago
    I read a blog of someone preparing for a 24-hour swim around one of the Swiss lakes and he was explaining about how it's important to get the reach and catch right. I understood this to mean getting your body rotation, shoulder and slightly-bent, extended arm into the most mechanically advantageous position. I imagine that this minimises "difficult" stresses on the shoulder joint. I'm trying to implement this without a trainer and it seems not to be irritating my (unrelated) shoulder injury.
    - michaelg7x 7y ago
      It may have been somewhere on this (http://reminiscencesofalongdistanceswimmer.blogspot.com http://reminiscencesofalongdistanceswimmer.blogspot.com) blog
- entee 7y ago
  Generally for freestyle you want to follow these rules to avoid shoulder injury: 1.) Don't cross the center line of your body with your arm. If you were climbing a ladder you wouldn't ever do that. Freestyle is kind of like climbing a ladder horizontally. 2.) Keep a good rotation around your center line in the upper body. This helps to use your back muscles/lats to do the big work. You want to be sore at the end of the workout in your lats, core and maybe chest. Not your shoulders. 3.) Don't over-extend your arm in reach. Many people end up pushing down on the water they initiate their stroke, this is wasted work and also shoulder strain. You want to as quickly as possible have your hand pulling parallel to your body, which usually means a high, wide elbow in the catch. This is a course I've been meaning to try but haven't. It purports to reduce shoulder injuries: https://www.swimsmooth.com https://www.swimsmooth.com This is the current view on how to initiate your pull: https://www.triswimcoach.com/high-elbow-catch/ https://www.triswimcoach.com/high-elbow-catch/

alimw 7y ago

> That or maybe it's just the hypoxia ;) Or a kind of mild hypothermia? I've experienced your "euphoric feeling" during and after swims in cooler water. Google tells me the water temperature in San Francisco Bay is about fourteen degrees Celsius.

zizee 7y ago
> Hypoxia is a condition in which the body or a region of the body is deprived of adequate oxygen supply at the tissue level. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoxia_(medical) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoxia_(medical)
- throwaway2019G 7y ago
  Read the actual comment.

Pimpus 7y ago

You should look into aquatic ape theory, it might explain why we feel so good when we swim. One of the ideas is that swimming required us to develop breath control, which was a prerequisite for developing speech.

_the_inflator 7y ago

Swimming is a potential deadly sport - you could drown. With this in mind, I learned the technical aspects of swimming which forced me to focus on the here and now. If you are not focussed you make mistakes which can lead to swallowing water. I did this in order to swim longer and faster. I finally grasped the highly meditational aspect of swimming and enjoy it. Even though I prefer running over swimming nothing comes close to swimming in regards to meditation.

205guy 7y ago

I must put in a word for my favorite sport: week-long solo backpacking. Meditation, frustration, overcoming, self-reliance, singing at the top of your lungs, not speaking for days, exhaustion, mental challenge, pushing yourself, scenery and more scenery, plenty hypoxia too. Bonus euphoria for some high summits, sleeping under the stars, catching your own food, not being eaten by predators, swimming in frozen lakes, etc. Use hiking poles for full-body workout, go off-trail for some mental exercise, push your boundaries and immerse yourself for days on end.

jraby3 7y ago
That sounds amazing but I’d be terrified to attempt this. Any good beginner resources you recommend?
- cmurf 7y ago
  Join a club, e.g. Colorado Mountain Club. You can rent gear for starters. Good backpacking gear is expensive and it's continuously getting better, so renting is totally sane and you probably come out ahead until you're going often. You could start by going with people doing a gear checkout, quick overnighter, not too far from their car. Do at least a basic first aid course, consider more formal wilderness training, also available through the club.

balabaster 7y ago

In my years I've been a keen swimmer and cyclist. When I'm pool swimming, I don't usually get that euphoric high until the cool air of outside hits me in the face as I'm leaving the building. The harder I swam, the higher the high, but it never hits me until the outside air hits my lungs. It's incomparable. When I'm on my bike, I reach that same meditative trance. It's just the road, the pain in my legs and lungs and the focus on getting to the end of my ride, little by little, kilometre by kilometre. Everything else just falls away. My problems don't matter when I'm on my bike. The pain ensures that my focus is occupied and I'm present. Completely present. When I reach the end of my ride and fall from my bike because my legs won't carry me, the high comes as I lay trying to catch my breath. There may be something to your observation that it could be related to hypoxia. Either way, the high is real.

cryptozeus 7y ago

How did you find the Alcatraz race ? Was water too cold ? I would love to do this but bit scared about shark attack lol ( i know there are no sharks in bay)

nradov 7y ago
Water temperature is about 58°F / 14°C. With a decent wetsuit the water temperature will be fine for most everyone, although the real tough swimmers go without. There are sharks in the Bay, mostly leopard sharks which aren't dangerous to people. At times there may be a few great white sharks as well but you'll probably never see one.