Swimming: How many lengths to start off with?

Beginner swimming times?

• I am a 20 year old female currently weighing around 9 stone 8 (134 lbs) and want to just get fit, tone up, and maybe lose a few pounds. I have started swimming and currently swim at about x50 lengths of 25m (1250m) in 30min doing mainly front crawl/free style. I have no idea what is good or what isn't so can someone please help me with goal times? How am I doing to start off with? Thanks in advance :)

• Answer:

  Just swimming 1250 meters is pretty good when starting to swim for fitness. Don't worry at all about the time too much right now, but if you really want to improve your fitness through swimming, try to get up to about 2000 meters, and you can break that up into smaller sets. As your endurance improves (it will, but it wont feel like it is - it takes time) try some beginner swimming practices (there's a ton of sites where people post their practices). Just find one around 2k, and again don't worry too much about the times just follow the spirit of the practice. It'll probably have a warm-up, a heart-rate portion, some sets to add distance, then a cool down. Swimming is a great fitness activity, but unfortunately I doubt you'll see much of a improvement from 1250 yards a day at a steady pace unless you add in quite a bit of dry-land exercise as well. And, I fee like a broken record, and I know that at 20 this might sound embarrassing, but ask a classmate or a swimmer you know to take a look at your stroke and recommend some technique improvements; so much of the fitness benefits of swimming are lost through bad technique - you'll just be tired but not gain a lot from the exercise. I don't know if that's the answer you're looking for, but I hope it helps For a frame of reference, most lifeguards are required to complete a 500yd (a little over 450 meters) in 15 minutes, and a beginner-level competitive 18 year old girl should finish a 1500 meter swim in around 23.5 minutes.