>>439316Swimming half a mile is awesome! Way to go,
nonnie. How long does it take you? Imo I don't think you need to swim that much every time you get in a pool. Adding a short high-intensity swim into your regimen twice a week can be helpful. It depends on your goals, really. Are you looking for endurance, speed, or overall fitness?
If I were a beginner, I would focus on freestyle for endurance, adding back and breast for strengthening other muscles. Butterfly is high intensity and difficult, so if you want that challenge, go for it. Otherwise, I think the other strokes will help your overall fitness and toning. I add a mix of crawl, back, and breast to my workouts as well as some drills with a kickboard.
As far as stretches go, pre-swim I do some torso twists, arm circles, and leg swings to warm up. Post-swim, I do more actual stretches focusing on lats, hamstrings, and quads. I'm sure there's some videos on YT out there. Also, I like to do yoga on days when I'm not in the pool. Yoga with Kassandra has a good video for swimmers. I also like her yin yoga series for deep stretching and relaxation.