Becoming more active: “Swimming is now firmly a part of my routine”
To mark the 100th year since the first British women got the right to vote, we are posting features on active disabled women. Since January, we’ve been hearing from Shona, a 20 year old disability, lifestyle and beauty blogger. For the past four months she has been blogging about her swimming journey and becoming more active.
In her fourth blog post for us, Shona tells us how she can now confidently say swimming is firmly a part of her routine.
Shona’s fourth blog post: I’ve definitely got lots of little routines now I’m four months in
It’s now been four months since I started this journey of beginning to swim again, after years of not being in a swimming pool, and I really can’t believe how quick the time has passed. It almost feels like I’ve been swimming for four years, not four months. I can confidently say that swimming is now firmly part of my routine and I’m enjoying every single session.
I was sure at the start of the year that I would go every week without fail, but I was setting myself up to fail by putting so much pressure on myself to succeed. Instead, over the past month especially, I’ve taken a more relaxed approach. Some weeks I go once, other weeks I can manage two sessions and some weeks I don’t make it to the pool at all, and that’s okay. My body and symptoms can be unpredictable and of course it’s frustrating when I’m not able to go, but I’ve also learnt the importance of taking a step back when I need to.
Now that I’ve built up my stamina a little, my body and muscles have got used to moving more, I’ve been able to focus more on my technique and form. Sure, I’m not going to be competing in the Paralympics anytime soon but I still want to try and swim as efficiently as possible so that I don’t injure myself, or end up in bed for a week because I’ve over done it. At first I felt a little deflated because I was swimming less lengths, but swimming shorter distances has really helped me to work on my technique and build up more strength.
Now I’ve been swimming for a few months another thing that I’ve been working on is perfecting my swimming bag and the contents inside! It might be slightly more trivial but as a powerchair user I don’t have a lot of space for a big bag when travelling to and from the pool. So, I’ve had to bring as little as possible with me when I go swimming. I have my essentials that I always make room for though and my Fitbit is one of them, I don’t wear it all the time as I only walk inside my home, so I’m not interested in knowing my steps, but the tracking function for swimming has really helped me. Knowing how many lengths I’ve done each session, and how hard I’ve worked, has really helped with motivation as I find myself wanting to beat the numbers each week.
I also take travel sizes of my shower products or fill up empty travel size bottles with my favourite products to help save space in my bag, including a little travel size hairbrush! I also always have a heat patch in my bag to help with any immediate muscle pain or soreness. Sometimes I’ll pop in some sports tape if any of my joints are particularly bendy that day. I’ve definitely got lots of little routines now I’m four months in!
I’m now hoping to just get stronger and stronger as the months go by, I’d like to be able to consistently swim at least 1000 metres during every session from now on, and I think that is definitely an attainable goal with the improvements I’ve been making recently!
If you didn’t catch Shona’s last blog post, you can read it here.
Keep a look out on our news section, Twitter and Facebook to see how Shona gets on achieving her goals next month.
