<p>Well, I'm kind of nervous about it. I'm a pretty strong swimmer but I've never swam competitively. I'm overweight and worried about being teased. Not sure what swim gear I'll need.(Swim jammer, goggles, swim cap etc.?) First practice is on my birthday so I hope it goes well and doesn't bring down my whole day.
-CTPeruvian97</p>
<p>You could try out for girls' swimming. They're typically slower.</p>
<p>^ Damn, you took my joke.</p>
<p>Yes, you may as well try it out. In general the only people who are made fun of are jerks. Trust me some people on swim are quite fat. Not like the girl managers will say anything :) Only reason I'm not doing swim this year is because two-a-day practices suck.</p>
<p>I would just get a decent suit (TYR perhaps around $40). Speedo vanquisher is a pretty good goggle. Be sure to get prescription if you need it. Only about 1/2 the people on the team wear a cap for practice so don't worry about it.</p>
<p>Buy a SPEEDO, not jammers. You will get more teased from that than your weight. If you're fast, then weight doesn't matter. Steal goggles (it sounds wrong, but there are goggles taken every day or left out every day. you'll save a lot of money. the cool ones are the good ones.) and a cap isn't necessary until meets. Fins for hands and feet would be assets.</p>
<p>Also what do you do at a normal swim practice?</p>
<p>It depends on what you do. The full set of swim gear (everything you could possibly need) would be:
Speedo swimsuit (you generally have a team suit and a practice suit, but they both should be competitive swimsuits. Some people use their team suit as their practice suit but that makes the suit wear our quicker, not generally advisable.)</p>
<p>Goggles (2-3 pairs at least, just hunt around until you find a type you like a LOT and buy some pairs of those)</p>
<p>Team cap (Not many people wear this during practices but if it's your first year competitively swimming I recommend wearing a cap, doesn't have to be your team cap. It's good to practice in competitive wear so when/if you go to meets you're at least a little bit more comfortable)</p>
<p>Towels (have at least 2, you only have to bring one to practice. Use an absorbent towel so you can dry off quickly after practice.)</p>
<p>Some people bring fins for feet and/or hands. Generally coaches don't like people to wear fins on their hands (makes the swimmers rely on those instead of on good technique), so I wouldn't get those. Most (all) pools have fins for the feet that you can use. There might not be enough for everyone on the team - I'd recommend asking a person already on the team if it'd be advisable for you to get your own personal pair of fins.</p>
<p>Are you able to do all 4 strokes (butterfly, freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke)? Generally you need to be able to do a 100 free and a 50 in everything else but if your school has a serious swim team you may have to do more. </p>
<p>Normal swim practices vary tremendously. It depends on the caliber of the swim team. Generally swimmers are sorted according to skill level (swimmers of similar skill levels are put into the same lanes) and a suitable schedule is prepared for them. You can do literally anything from 25 sprints to 5-10 50s to 500 frees to kick sets with a kickboard (provided by pool) to pull sets with a buoy (arms only, but a buoy between your legs, also provided by pool) to relays to medley relays to 200 IMs to 100s or 200s of specific strokes to drills of specific stroke (e.g. two kicks one pull breaststroke drill, you kick twice for every pull) to practicing flip turns via two-turn 50s to races to anything else your coach thinks of. There's no "normal" swim practice. One day you can focus on freestyle and butterfly, the next backstroke and breaststroke, the next all four, etc., etc. Generally swim practice involves a lot of swimming ;)
Every now and then, though, you might have dry-land practices where you go do a normal workout routine like push-ups, wallsits, sit-ups, maybe weight training, cardio, etc.
It varies depending on the school. You should probably go ask some veteran swimmers on your school's swim team these questions. Team captains are always willing to talk about swimming.</p>
<p>Thanks aj39... That helped a lot. I know all 4 of the basic strokes but I'm not that fast at breaststroke and butterfly. I'm planning on practicing those strokes for the next 2 weeks until the 1st practice.</p>
<p>Make sure you practice all four. How "good" is your school's swim team? How good are you with various drills (what drills do you know/have you done) and flip turns? Do you have any times?</p>
<p>Edit edit: Do a 50 freestyle, a 50 back, a 50 fly, a 50 breast, and a 100 free (all sprints) and have someone time how long it takes for you to do them. It's good to have a baseline to improve from.</p>
<p>Edit: It's good to practice the strokes you're bad at, but remember that you should do well in free if not free and back. They're all important for 1st-year swimmers to practice.</p>
<p>I'm going to try out and most likely make it because there's only one other freshman.</p>
<p>There are people who weigh more but are fast so don't worry about the weight, is this going to be a JV team?</p>
<p>Thanks and Yeah I think.</p>