Hi. I’m new to the crawl, like everyone once was. I’ve been learning since October and I’ve made some reasonable progress. I’ve had 3 3 hour TI lessons and I’m very happy with the TI way.
I know what to work on (kick, balance, rotation, recovery, catch, timing, !), and I’m swimming 3-4 times a week, doing drills and swimming.
I’ve been able to “swim” since the middle of December.
Here’s my issue. After a single length 20m, I’m breathless. Once I catch my breath, I can continue. I could probably swim for a long time like that, my muscles don’t ache particularly. I can breathe on both sides and I can swim bi-laterally or uni-laterally. I know to exhale under the water, though I may not be doing it correctly.
So, I need to work out why I’m so breathless (I swam in a 50m pool last night and was struggling to do a length without drowning!).
It’s either
my technique is poor (I don’t think it’s too bad, though obviously it needs a lot of work)
my (swimming) fitness (I’m in good running/cycling shape - I ran 2 marathons last year and I train 6 days a week)
a muscular issue (my upper body is not as developed as my lower)
a breathing issue - not exhaling effectively or not getting enough air in causing a buildup of CO2
all of the above or some horrible combination
My question is - how do I tell if it’s breathing-related? If I wear an HRM in the pool and my breathing is the issue, will my HR be (relatively) low or will it rise when the CO2 builds up too?
Any words of encouragement would be good, too! Sometimes I despair. I’m supposed to be doing olympics and middles this summer.
You must not be breathing in well–just opening your mouth. How do you do when you kick on your back? Do you exhale underwater, then inhale when you turn to the surface? What about those drills where you take a single stroke and rotate to ‘sweet spot’ and breathe and then do the same on the opposite side? Have you tried a snorkel?
Recipher, you are going to think my answer sounds totally retarded but I was in the same boat not too long ago – could do 25m just fine but was absolutely spent after 50m. And, like you, I narrowed the problem down to my breathing.
Luckily one day I had a breakthrough moment – I discovered that I was going through all the motions of breathing but, in fact, I wasn’t inhaling while my face was out of the water. Yes, I thought I was breathing and knew I was blowing air out while face in the water. But I was never taking deep enough breaths. Inhale volume should = exhale volume.
I started to focus on taking a deep breath every time I’d turn to take a breath. Trust me, this isn’t as easy as it sounds and I ended up inhaling lots of water (not fun). While breathing actually force the intake to where you can here it; exaggerate it the way a kid would. After a while you’ll get so used to inhaling when you turn you’ll do it naturally.
I hope this helps. If not, I don’t have much more to offer.
PS – don’t mention TI if you want good input from others
Can you backstroke and breastsroke for more than 50m at a time?
In addition to the previous post about not breathing in deeply and then deeply exhaling…
Your breathing should match your effort–just like running and biking. The harder you swim the harder you should be breathing. Now if you’re not swimming hard but you’re breathing really hard you’re probably going to feel uncomfortable.
In the end, swimming takes practice. You’ll get it.
I don’t backstroke but I can breaststroke all day (not quite but you get the picture).
Thanks for the encouragement. I keep telling myself that I’ll get there but, despite the progress I’ve made in a short space of time, I still worry. It’s not something that you can force, like climbing hills on the bike or trying to get speedier on foot.
It’s pretty much from the beginning of the workout. One length = done. It maybe gets worse as I get more tired through the session but, yep, right from the start.
I’m going to work exclusively on my breathing tomorrow in the pool, and practice different things to see how it works.
This is good advice from Aerohead. How many yards do you do per workout? Sometimes it just takes the yardage to relax enough to fill and empty your lungs sufficiently. What happens when you slow down? Can you go slow enough to make it past 20m?
Couple of things:
1a. Don’t hold your breath! People breath in and out in a rythem while running or cycling, swimming is no different. If you’re breathing bi-laterally every 3 or 5 strokes, try breathing to only one side once per arm cycle.
1b. Don’t take huge breaths! How big of a breath do you take when you are running/cycling? I bet its not more that a quick “sip” of air not a complete exhale and inhale.
2. Relax! Many new swimmer stress about having their mouth underwater. Keep in mind, the surface is just a coupld of inches away and if you’re in a pool the bottom/side/lineline is usually in reach at all times.
Same boat as me. I also went the TI route and don’t regret the things it taught me (this comes from a complete non-swimmer), but now I feel I need to move away from the “drill” only gig to doing some bigger yardage. You can’t complete a marathon doing alot of short walks and this is essentially what I felt I got from TI. That being said, since moving to more of a traditional style swim coaching approach I have seen big improvements. I really think it is all about breathing. I think it just takes time. Concentrate on a complete exhale and then good inhale. Trust me this is not easy when you are sucking water because your form is not completely there. I have been doing alot of one arm swimming and swimming with the Finnis snorkel. I also do 25’s with 20 seconds rest. Just keep repeating them until I can’t. It is coming along slowly, but I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Keep it up. Watch “good” swimmers and try to copy them. I found that sometimes you have to throw the “rules” out and just swim.
Here’s my advice - which is not necessarily advanced or sage but…when I started “swimming” I noticed I definitely needed about 10 minutes to get into the groove and warm-up and then to reach that swimming bliss zone, you need to clear your mind. May sound silly but the more I stressed over getting the stoke right, the more breathless I became and the more mistakes I made. Zone out is my advice, at least until you realize “Hey, I’ve been swimming for over 5, 10, 15 minutes w/o breathlessness.” Then work on how you feel in the water and perfect your stroke. It works/worked for me. Good Luck!
I would guess, from all that you have written, aerohead is correct. The problem is that you feel that you are going to inhale a lung full of water–not good. The TI drills–I don’t know the names–that involve taking 3 strokes and rolling to breathe, and 3 more, etc. then try just one forceful breath and back to 3 strokes, etc. Gradually, make that breath without altering your stroke cadence. Also, try looking back a little when you breathe. Most people look forward, so water goes in their mouth, so they either rear up, or don’t breathe. Looking back a few degrees directs the water away.
these guys pretty well hit it. I’ve gone from 3 laps and smoked years ago to the slowest guy at Masters- hoping to be middle of Masters by end of the year. I still feel much better after the warmup and 1st working set- maybe to help you relax you should run 10 min or so before getting in the pool?
Another option would be to breast-stroke everything, including IM. Just be sure you can fight in the water, as someone will try to run you over and kick you… (Laugh everyone, its a joke…)
From your description, I’d guess it’s a breathing issue, not a fitness issue. I don’t think an HRM will give you the answer. I had a similar problem when I was learning to swim last year. The key for me was gliding just a little bit when breathing. I mostly breathe on the left, so it meant just gliding for a split second with my right arm extended. That gave me just the extra time and relaxation I needed to get in enough air. Once I got the hang of it (more or less), I could reduce the glide. But, until then, I would slow down your turnover and make breathing the priority.
another thought on this one- how many strokes per length? I started counting every time a few months back- going from 19-20 to a consistent 16-17 seems to have greatly reduced my energy expenditure, and thus not taxed my breathing as much. Might work for you as well, but I’m no expert.
I had and still do have this issue from time to time. Like you I learned to “Really” swim 3 years ago.
My problem happens on the turn (No I cannot and do do flip turns yet). Once I could do a length of the pool I would die at the turn (I still feel very out of breath the first strokes after the turn). However, I would never have this feeling in open water
I think something happens in the breathing pattern at the wall the gets either A) to much air in B) I cannot get enough out or C) like another poster stated I was not actually breathing.
My solution is make sure I force myself relax for the first 3 or so strokes off of the wall, and not give into the paniced feeling of a lack of air. After two or 3 cycles of strokes I am back to comfort, until the next turn.
I do know if this helped or hurt. I am confused now!
You are getting so good breathing tips. Also, just work on relaxing in the water. Start that by easing into the workout warming up really slow and possibly using a pull buoy to warm up so you don’t kick like a madman and go breathless right off the bat.
At least two things have an influence on feeling as though you are out of breath: One is a warm-up…Build up effort slowly for 10-15 minutes so that your system knows what to expect. If one starts to swim hard without a warm-up, your systems have no idea what is coming next. Thus, you may start to hyperventilate. If you want to maximize your performance, get in that 10-15 minutes of warm-up. Second is the amount of air that you exhale. If you limit your exhalations, the relative amount of CO2 in your lungs will increase which will result in a feeling of being out of breath. When you get that feeling, increase the quantity of air you exhale for the next three exhalations and that should bring your system back in balance.