Would be nice if I could swim naked at the Apple Valley public pool but a Speedo is as close as I can get to that :-) In the summer the public pool gets too crowded so I do my swimming excercise at home in our 15 foot round, 4 foot deep pool. Since I do alot of hiking I get plenty of excercise for my legs so I do the freestyle swimming mainly for my upperbody workout. And how do I swim freestyle in a 15 foot pool? I wear wet suit booties and secure a type of strap I constructed around my ankes, then a rope is attached from the strap to the side of the pool and I swim in place on the surface. I also attach a float to the strap at the ankes to keep my legs essentially level with the surface of the water otherwise they would sink down. I put a large dark colored roundish stone on the bottom of the pool that I can watch to keep me aligned in one place since you tend to drift to one side or the other, one arm usually being stronger, and the currents created by the swimming in a round pool also push you to either side, depending on how they interact with the round sides so I move the rock to a postition where these various currents are balanced. I wear a mask and snorkel for a couple of reasons, one is that the pool gets pretty wavy and breathing like most swimmers do by angleing your head to the side to get a breath gets you splashed in the face often with waves, and I like to be able to get air when ever I want like is the case when I'm hiking. We put a solar cover on the pool and right now the temp is around 86 which I find very comfortable to excercise in. If the pool starts getting to warm like when its real hot I just remove the cover to keep the temp down in the mid eighties. Swimming is a great cardio workout and I find it gives me alot more stamina for hiking too :-) So with a smallish pool like I mentioned above purchased at Walmart and using this technique anyone who likes swimming can do so at home in the warmer months pretty easily, and you don't have to deal with trying to get a lane at the public pool in the busier summer time. Also since we have a relatively secluded back yard I do my excercise swim naked, no Speedo :-) Maybe this could be called Free Swimming :-)
