My understanding it that Perkins used to take two breaths of his right, swim threee strokes and then then take two breaths to his let and repeat.

Thorpe would breath every 2 nd stroke. To his left heading up one direction of the pool, and to his right on the way back.

I'd love to see all supplement pushers to post here on ST, so we can really dissect their product and force them to back up their claims with facts... although it may not bode so well for Dan and ST advertising.
What an entertaining thread!

Try surfing the forums at bodybuilding.com if you like this vein... its wading through BS so thick that makes swimming in lake louise in clermont seem crystal clear

First the bike $'s, then the running shoes that bounce you to the finish chute...At my next swim practice I'm going to pedal up to the pool in my full kit, dive into the pool with my Profile Design aerobars (aerodynamic/hydrodynamic, what's the difference?) and recruit the cutest girl there to put some drop$ of liquid oxygen on my wagging tongue after every 100. I'll rise up out of the water like like a modern day Triton!

I had time to kill and experimented with the 2:3 breathing this evening in the pool. I usually breathe on my right, but do alternate during a long set just to alleviate the neck aches. That being said, I didn't have too much trouble getting the technique down. It definitely required more thought, as I had to remember to breathe on certain sides, and breathing twice in a row is just...weird.
So based off the sets I did, I found 2:3 breathing to be ~5 sec slower per 100yds, with no discernible difference in how I felt afterwards. Granted, I'm sure I didn't master this breathing technique, but I found it strange. Maybe it's just because I've adapted to breathing every other stroke, but I feel I just don't need to breathe 2 stokes in a row. It felt clumsy because I had a natural tendency to keep my head under during the 2nd stroke, because I wasn't "hungry" for oxygen (can we tell I'm not a doctor?). That, and the entire time I was forcing myself to do it, I thought, "is this post really going to make thousands of long course swimmers suddenly smack their foreheads and realize 'man, I was doing it wrong all this time!'"? Either way, I am not going to continue trying to breathe 2:3 breaths:pulls. I think if there's any performance gains to be had, they're in my stroke technique anyway.
Oh, wait, I didn't read the rest of the tread...did ST spend all day debunking this breathing thing and I missed the boat? Liquid oxygen what now?

Well, there was your mistake. Obviously you missed the benefit from the O2 and the ATP. You'll have to repeat the experiment, not all the variables were present.

John

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Top notch coaching: Francois and Accelerate3 | Follow on Twitter: LifetimeAthlete |

i hear that liquid O2 combined with ATP totally cleanses the lymphatic system of toxins.

Even if the "science" the Thunderbolt/Liquid O2 claims were true, wouldn't there be a huge ethical problem:
It would be like most banned substances: A chemical that has an effect or side-effect designed gives whoever takes it an unfair advantage over the competition. Are we OK with a culture of whatever is not currently on the list over forbidden practices or on a doping list is not cheating. There is no other reason to "keep it close to the chest", other than not getting caught using it. Keeping it secret ensures the unfair advantage too.
It is not like not you are talking about keeping an innocent training secret from the other teams or countries. This is about by altering your natural body with chemicals with "very powerful effects".

In my opinion, trying to sell such items and argue for them should be embarrassing for anyone with their name related to the Olympics...

so protein powder, or endurox, or anything of the like should be banned because it assists in muscle recovery?

What about compression socks? Hell just ban clothes, food, and equipment. That'll show who the TRUE champion is...

Dear ST forum,

OK. You've beaten me up on the studies. I will get them soon enough. Some of you likely won't believe them even when i do. The rest of you will try the products and figure it out for yourself. But let's move on.
There are 3 fundamentals of fast swimming that apply equally to the 2 1/2 mile swim in the Ironman and the 50 m freestyle. The techniques change but the fundamentals do not. One needs to understand and learn about all three. The first I call Thick as a Brick. Here is the short version.
The human body is shaped more like a brick than a streamlined object (fish, airplane etc) and bricks don't do well in the water. It takes a lot of energy to power them up and little time for them to slow (decelerate).
If you take a racing dive, you hit the water at about 5 mph, which is about as fast as Gary Jr swims the 50 m freestyle. However, even if you get in a tight streamline, with no kick or pull, you come to nearly a complete stop in 5 seconds. That is a brick (almost).
Most of us try to do the obvious things while swimming that will make us behave less like bricks and more like fish. We wear a cap, a wetsuit when appropriate and allowed or a Lazer suit in a pool, even shave our arms and legs to reduce drag. All good things. Soon we discover in this challenging sport called swimming that the little things we can do to ourselves to make us less like bricks, the faster we go and with less effort.
But there are two things we must do that are not obvious and nearly all of the hundreds of swimmers who have come to The Race Club do wrong....very wrong. The first is head position (we have already discussed that) and the second is the high elbow underwater.
All of my coaches always told me to swim with a high elbow underwater, but never explained why. Because they would tell my my elbows would drop when i tired, i assumed it had to do with power. It has nothing to do with power. It has everything to do with drag. Here is a little experiment you can do that proves I am right.
Put your fins on. Push off the wall on your stomach and put one arm straight over your head while the other arm is pointing straight down at the bottom of the pool. Now kick as hard and as fast (with your head down) to the other side of the pool. You will have to work at keeping your straight arm down as the water will want to push it back. Once you have done that and realize how much drag your straight arm creates, do the same exercise at the same speed, but instead of putting your arm straight down, hold it directly to your side and bend the elbow 90 degrees. Make sure it remains at right angles and you do not bring the elbow out of the water.
What you will experience is drag both ways, but a lot more drag with the arm straight than with it bent. Same surface area yet a lot more drag is created when the arm is straight down as opposed to bent with a high elbow. Not obvious but true hydrodynamics.
In swimming, your arms are your best friend and your worst enemy. They are your best friend because they create most of the propulsion. They are your worst enemy because they cause significant drag.
The forward velocity of the hand throughout the underwater pull is near zero. Yet the body (of a fast swimmer) moves at about 2 meters per second. A slower swimmer moves at about 1 meter per second (50 meters in 50 seconds). The arm, as you move down from the shoulder to the hand, moves forward at 2 m per second down to zero at the hand. The faster an object moves, the more drag it creates. Also, the arm is bigger at the top than at the bottom. Therefore the upper part of the arm from the shoulder to elbow will create a lot of drag if the arm is straight down or less drag if the elbow is high and to the side.
Other than reducing drag, there is nothing comfortable or natural about pulling with a high elbow....yet every great swimmer does it. In fact, it is less powerful than pulling deep, but the increase in drag that creates more than offsets the added power.
So swim with your head down (nearly submerged) to elevate your body in the water (reduces pressure drag) and to reduce surface drag by not allowing your head to become the bow of a boat. Then pull with your elbows up....way up, uncomfortably up....and you will begin to see what i mean. The pull will also be wider than you are used to
Now, I am too tired to discuss fundamental #2 (Swim with your Body) or fundamental #3 (Swim on the Freeway), so I will take these up tomorrow. I am brain dead from arguing with the naysayers.
Have a nice evening!

Respectfully,

Gary Sr.

I've use the "breath on every arm stroke" technique in the past in open water but have not done it in years....maybe I should cause from 94-96 I was consistently in the 54-56 range and I am no consistently in the 60-62 range....oh, maybe it has more to do with swimming 15-20K per week in that time frame and only doing ~0-8K per week of late.

Seriously though in open water swimming it does work OK. Not sure why I stopped doing it. I'll actually go to the pool for the first time in Feb tomorrow so perhaps time to try it again. I don't think you will notice a diff in a 100 or 200, but towards the tail end of a hard 400 and beyond, more oxygen is good.

I typically breath either 45, 60 or 90 times per minute when running depending on intensity (every second right foot, every third stride, every right foot). In the pool when swimming a 100m in 90 seconds, with 22 strokes per length (total 44) and breathing every third hand entry I am only breathing ~15 times....so I ask you guys....what is wrong with this picture? Running in 90 seconds, I breath between 60 and 120 times per 90 seconds depending on intensity....in swimming, only 15 times? Next time you go running, try breathing only 15 times in 90 seconds.

.....and all those 1:10 plus IM swimmers with pretty strokes with incredibly low stroke rate are hardly getting any oxygen....by and large the reason why these guys with pretty strokes are so slow is cause not only is their stroke rate low (as all coaches say...slow it down so you glide more)....they are getting less oxygen because of stupidly low stroke rates....certainly a death spiral for the slow swimmer!!!

Dear nfreeman,

You misspelled ophthalmologist. I was the subject of a witch hunt in Arizona because of my family connection to my father-in-law, Charles Keating. I stand on my record of caring (well) for over 100,000 patients and left Arizona gladly because I was clearly not wanted there. Life isn't fair. What does this have to do with swimming or physiology again?

Gary Sr.

PS I am still happily married. Are you?

Regardless of the supplement conversation, I did find these swim tips interesting.

I have to point out the obvious to a group that may not have a grasp on just who is in our midst......................
Gary Hall Senior was the Michael Phelps (only smarter........he is a VERY noted eye surgeon) of the late 60's and early 70's ]]

Been busy here and just ran into this thread, and yes, this is the real deal when it comes to swimming. I swam around the time of this guy, and recently I watched him swim around 56 I think for a 100fly at masters nationals in the 55+ AG..He has the creds for swimming, and has been doing it at the top level for a lot of years, about 40+...

Ok, first thing. How long have I been telling all of ya that you need to breath, and a lot. I hope this helps settle the alternating breathing(every 3 strokes) vs breathing every stroke theories. I have done what he talks about, but just into the turns like Perkins did. I will have to develope the technique to do the 2 breath every 3 stroke method, because he is right, the more air you can get in swimming, the better off you will be, especially in a triathlon. Does'nt matter if you are out of breath or not, your body will benifit from the extra oxygen, even if it is'nt in speed in the swim..Remember, that you have a long day after the swim, may as well get on with it, in as small as hole as possible.

As to the nutrition aspect of liquid oxygen, I have no expirence with it, and since I do not have a science degree, I can't begin to even formulate an opinion on it. Perhaps I will give it a try, stranger things have been shown to work over the years.

To Gary Hall SR., welcome to the forum, and just know that this kind of trial is normal here. In fact, it is usually worse, but apparently most people here believe you are who you say you are. We often get pretenders here, and they get flushed out quickly. I hope that you do not get offended at the challenges here, and continue to post your thoughts on swimming..First posts that have a sales pitch in them here, are often taken as spam, I hope that was not your intention, and you stay around long enough to get to know our community. Besides the 20k+ that actually post here, there are another 100K plus that just like to read and lurk..And I can tell you, that most of them are lacking in the swimming dept, and can use all the help they can get..

There you go.

Gary Sr.

Thanks Monty! I needed that. I was starting to feel like this was the Board of Medical Examiners in Arizona. Regardless of what people may believe about the liquid oxygen and ATP (they work), trust me when i tell you that I was in a kangaroo court in Arizona. Kind of how i feel here today.
So I am sharing with all of you some of my best knowledge in swimming. You can take or leave it. All I can tell you is that after 50 years in the sport, i think i have learned something. And there is a lot of either non-advice or bad advice being given to swimmers.
Anyway, glad to be here, appreciated or not.

Regards,

Gary Sr.

I love the race club videos on floswimming. My teammate swims the 1500 meter freestyle with the style of breathing you described...and he goes 15 45 so something is working.

welcome gary. many of us remember. honor to have you here. reader forums are this generation's frontier, as in the wild west, guns blazing. forewarned is forearmed. that established, our readers here are typically good natured.

i hope you stick around. we did have a real swimming father figure, doug stern. as you may know, doug passed away. we've got very good swimmers here, but we're still waiting for our next swim guru -- somebody really, really old, like you ;-)

i think you'll enjoy slowtwitch, i hope you're a regular.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

You should be ashamed of yourself for promoting that liquid O2/ATP crap. Talk to us about your 50 years of swimming knowledge, about form, about technique, but don't try to push that garbage on here. You also sell Noni Juice, will that increase my run split? Sad.

(from a MD/Phd in biochemistry who knows a little about anerobic/aerobic metabolism)

Dr Hall,

I'm pleased that you are back and talking about swim mechanics and would also be interested in your swim facilities/clinics. Your expertise here is appreciated and if you can add some swim concept improvements for us slower swimmers, for that I would be grateful.
I have no issue with your medical board problems and by my understanding you are still a licensed to practice physician in Arizona. That all is probably irrelevant to much of our discussion until you started hawking your supplements .... I do still believe you owe us a higher standard of truth as a physician than the usual corner supplement pusher. I think you know you can't provide proof consistent with your education and the anecdotes don't cut much.
If I might suggest some help ... keep up your swim stuff as it is much appreciated ... let the supplement stuff go. If people want it, they know your website address and can purchase it anyway. Your focus on it really got things sideways for you .... welcome to ST ... it can be a tough place.
Good luck
Dave

Gary,

Thanks for the swim explanations, but I am still confused but what you write. You say to swim with your head down, yet if one even makes even a cursory study of videos of many, many elite 800m and 1500m swimmers racing in competition, nearly all of them have a very visible slightly tilted head up position, i.e., their faces do not point to the bottom of the pool, but point at an angle slightly forward of this. How best can one explain this? Thanks.

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Where would you want to swim ?

Dear Dave,

Thanks for the advice. I will take it. The supplements did get us sidetracked. Our 17 swimmers who went to Beijing from TRC who used our supplements did very well.....but i understand the controversy. Just trying to help. So I will stick to the swimming techniques. I am giving you a brief summary of the three fundamentals of fast swimming. Hope they help some of you.

Regards,

Gary Sr.