hugoagogo wrote:
BobAjobb wrote:
2 reasons I always (at least try to) breathe out constantly under water...
1- the buoyancy is in the chest - if I don't breathe out and hold on the breathe, it lifts the front of my body up and the legs go down = more drag.
2. What makes us all biologically want to gasp for air is the CO2 increase in the blood stream, long before the reduced O2 does. That's how we're all wired. Divers and free divers have understood this for decades. So breathing out constantly helps reduce the CO2 build up and so can go longer without the horrid 'gotta breathe' feeling getting as bad.
I have heard this before, but it never made any sense to me. I assume that the amount CO2 being produced is the same (for a given exercise level) whether we are holding our breath or not. If that is true, by exhaling we are not just reducing CO2 in your lungs, but also N2 and O2 (I do not think our lungs can selectively exhale only CO2) -- so by exhaling only we then put the same amount of CO2 into a smaller volume and thereby increasing the concentration of CO2 (in our lungs and thus also our bloodstream) compared to what it would be if we didn't exhale. I think the help from exhaling must come from a more complicated trigger to want to gasp for air -- the trigger (or at least the panic trigger) must take into consideration not just CO2 concentration, but also whether we are holding our breath (and exhaling doesn't get treated as holding our breath).
While the CO2 thing is true, breathing can be dumbed down to even simpler principles. I did a post on "Pulse breathing" a month ago, to zero replies/crickets...
1. Use the stroking arm to assist in exhaling, therefore max flow out is during the pull (either side).
2. Maintain exhale flow but reduce when the chest is not under tension - this also applies for the bubbling effect
3. You have to work against water pressure, so its best to align with chest cavity muscular compression and with lowest pressure (ie a good exhale just as turning to breathe in)
I think top swimmers naturally do the above, without even a thought.
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