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I’m a cyclist really, but going to eventually get into tri. Starting with swimming. After a length it seems I’m gasping for air and my HR is only about 120.
How can I ride my bike at 350w for an hour and can’t even get into endurance zones without feeling like I can’t breathe.
Any tips for beginners ?
I was in the same position when I started. Very fit on the bike but couldn't get across the pool. Back then, Total Immersion was really popular so that was recommended to me and it helped a lot. You need to focus on form and learn to swim smooth and relaxed. You're fighting the water. If you're like I was when I started, I couldn't swim super easy across the pool. If you can't do that, you have form issues you need to work on. I did a lot of drills and focused heavily on form for the first year and my times dropped significantly.
Swimming is difficult for me because I want to just power through and push hard to go faster like I do on the bike or run, but it doesn't work for me in the pool. My form goes bad and I swim slower or the same pace on more effort. Working harder and digging deep is rewarded on the bike and run, but not necessarily in the pool because swimming depends so heavily on form. If you can't hold good form, you're just wasting energy. I wouldn't worry at all about HR when starting. I would worry only about form and watch your times. As form improvements come, your times will drop. I always tell myself to swim fast, not hard. It's semantics, but swimming hard is sloppy for me but swimming fast is smooth. Fast is relative, but it keeps me focused on form and being smooth rather than effort and trying to plow through the water.
How are you getting your HR? Are you wearing a strap or taking it on the side of the pool? I tried the garmin swim HR strap for a while years ago and if I remember right my HR dropped really fast when swimming so I was getting my HR up higher than I thought. I think it would drop almost 40 beats in a minute on the side of the pool, so if I ever took it after a set it was lower than it was during the set so I didn't think I ever got my heart rate up while swimming but actually wearing the strap showed that I was getting it as high as other workouts, but it would drop really quickly once resting.