Does anyone else get this? It’s not painful, just uncomfortable, and goes away within an hour or two. Is this normal? Am I breathing wrong or something?
Are you exhaling when your face is underwater? One of my pals I swim with fights holding his breath and he gets that feeling occasionally.
Yeah, otherwise I feel like I don’t have enough time to fully exhale and inhale before rolling back. Is that incorrect?
Yeah, otherwise I feel like I don’t have enough time to fully exhale and inhale before rolling back. Is that incorrect?
Correct, holding breath is bad. Face in the wawa…exhale. Sorry that wasn’t a help.
I occasionally get this if it’s a rough practice and I am swallowing small bits of water/air during the set. Get out and stomach is like a balloon. After an hour or so it’s back to it’s usual washboard like ways (at least, in my mind that’s what I tell myself!).
Haha, cool.
It does seem to happen more during more intense and/or longer swims.
Thanks, guys.
Don’t swallow.
Didn’t think I was but I’ll pay more attention and see if that’s it.
Great, one more thing to keep track of! 
I’m still carry a little extra “puff” two days after a 15k swim…it’s not atypical with any type of swim/race, especially if it’s open water. There’s just naturally a big of glurg/slurp that happens, nevermind the tendency towards dehydration & the water retention that happens then anyway.
Exhale, hydrate, no worries.
I was getting really close to posting this same thing.
I have a stand up desk and some mornings after swimming my gut is so cramped up and bloated I have to lean on it, that is how bad it hurts, I physically can’t even straighten my back out.
No clue why started out of no where the past few months. Thought it was my protein shake after so stopped that, still happened. Tried protein shake after running or riding in the morning, fine.
Just swimming, food or drink before after don’t seem to change it, breath out underwater, don’t swallow any I’m aware of. I can look in bathroom mirror at work and see I"m all bloated, strange and glad it isn’t only me.
I do have really bad sinus/allergy issues so lately have been wondering if maybe its just seeping past some blockage in my nose.
Happens to me quite often, especially in choppy open water. Besides not gulping air & water, two things have helped:
- Eating one of those chewable Gas-X tablets before & after the swim.
- Forcing myself to burp out the air during the swim. Gross but effective.
Yeah, I went through the same thing with the shake. Definitely wasn’t that.
I’ve had the same thing since I started swimming. It used to get really bad/painful but lately it’s been pretty much what you described. The pain stopped and the bloating got much more reasonable when I shifted from breathing every 3 strokes to breathing every 2. I think this just lets me breathe in a more controlled manner. Now that I’ve settled in (that change was a couple years ago) I can breathe every 3 without too much of a problem but I still get worse bloating whenever my coach has me doing weird breathing sets (breathe every 5, swim left arm only, no breaths, etc.). Try changing up your breathing and see if that helps. For me the change was immediate.
Thanks, I’ll give that a shot.