Does anyone else get out of the pool after a workout and feel bloated and gross? I’ve been swimming a lot recently, and have started feeling pretty gross coming out of the pool. The feeling lasts about and an hour or two.
Any remedies? What’s causing it?
I call it pool belly and the best way to avoid it is to avoid the pool, which I’ve successfully done since August! Or try taking some Gas X before or after you swim.
this is just a guess, but it might have something to do with “overdoing”, according to your innards. if it goes away in an hour or two, that might be the price of increased fitness due to pushing yourself. if you have an easy swim day in your schedule, you might try to check how you feel after that one, to see if intensity is the cause of your bloating and feeling crummy. be sure to compare equal water times.
the other thing that might help with shortening the period of post-swim problems is to hop right on replenishing liquids, carbs and protein. not gobs thereof, but enough. since that’s a big component of regular recovery, it might help here. by soon, i mean within 30 minutes or so.
take heart. i bet this will work itself out.
cheers,
peggy
Can you explain further what you mean by feeling ‘bloated’ and ‘gross’? I think I kind of know what you mean, but not exactly. My tummy is usually pretty upset after swimming, but not really bloated. That goes away once I’ve had something to eat (yogurt is a favorite).
After swimming, I usually feel like my body has just soaked up a bunch of the icky chlorine water - I really like to swim, then run or bike (anything that gets you sweating) to get all that nastiness out. Second shower and then the chlorine odor might almost be gone!!!
How much are you hydrating while you’re swimming? Too much - or too little - water could be causing that icky feeling.
I wonder if the body soaks up pool water when swimming? Because after I swim, I have to pee like a mad man. For an hour (3000) yard session, I drink 20 oz of water to stay hydrated. But for how much I have to pee afterward, it would seem I’m drinking gallons when swimming.
I don’t swallow any pool water, so I don’t think thats it.
As for how it feels, it is mainly a bad stomach ache. I usually like to stand tall and keep my stomach in, but after swimming I find I want to slouch and stick my tummy out.
I had this problem too when I started triathlons about 2 years ago. Except I only felt it swimming in open water. I was reading an old issue of triathlete one day (an article on proper breathing while swimming). And I realized that I was breathing wrong (exhale in the water, inhale out of the water) I was exhaling and inhaling while out of the water and just holding my breath underwater. The first couple of triathlons I did I always felt horrible on the bike (my first xterra i hadn’t swam in open water for like 3 years, I came in at like 4:45 or something!!) (due to all of the ingested water) and the run, wow that was like if you had drank like 4 water bottles in 2 minutes and gone to race a 10k. But since then I have corrected my breathing with various drills n’such. So I guess try that I don’t know Im not a coach or anything.
On other threads, people have said that the need to “pee like a mad man” after swimming is because of the water pressure around you, I think?
Bad stomach ache - same here. Almost always. Like you said, it goes away, but my desire is usually to curl up into a ball and nap…
I hope others chime in with some answers, it is kind of strange.
That’s funny, becuase I always have to pee like crazy too. But There are a lot of other swimmers who I practice with, and the chop gets pretty crazy (good open-water simulation I guess) and I drink a lot of pool chlorine water. While we are on the subject of chlorine, my friend spilled some hydrochloric acid in analytical chemistry lab yesterday. It ate through the table. Awesome
hehe, same here, more or less (swam maybe twice in the last two months)
actually, I get kind of sick and queezy from swimming sometimes. I found that this mainly/only happens after a period of not swimming much at all. It is kind of a seasick feeling and it starts after about 20-30 minutes.
Upset stomach and all.
Today is was especially bad given my HUGE margarita hangover (I’ll never drink again in my life ;/ )
I had it starting the season last year then it went away once I swam a bit more (I never swim much to begin with), now it is back; guess it has to do with the rotation and all.
…oh well, will got take a nap now 
Happens to me all the time…both that “bloated” feeling and the need to pee like crazy more often than not. Opening and closing one’s mouth in a body of water might do strange things like that, though…we probably ingest more than we would care to really know!
I am so glad to hear the seasickness thing happens to other people! I get nauseated when I swim, but it tends to drop off if I swim more regularly. Curling up in a ball seems to be the only thing I want to do when that happens. (Oh, and bilateral breathing helps that a ton too).
And I too have to pee like a madman after I have a big swim session. I’m pretty sure I’m not drinking pool water.
I used to get that feeling when I swam with my mouth open. Now I keep it closed and I feel fine…
I used to get this feeling a lot when I swam, but since I started Masters Swimming I think it has gone away. Maybe I’ve learned to breath better after all those laps. Maybe the problem will come back, but I don’t know.
Maybe it you are suffering from vertigo related nausea. Have you tried ear-plugs?
I have just the opposite effect after I swim…I always feels slenderer…
My guess is you are swallowing a lot of air when you breathe. I feel bloated after a long run, and I’m pretty sure it’s because when i breathe in, I swallow air. I have a deviated septum, so I don’t breathe in through my nose (very much), but mostly through my mouth.
This could be it -swallowing air makes people burp to release the gas, and I wonder if I’m swallowing air, making me feel bloated.
Is there a trick to swallowing less air, or do I just need to figure out how to do it?
I"m always super burpy and farty after I swim. I really think it’s from swallowing air. Seriously try the Gas-X it works.
Better living through pharmaceuticals…