The progression is toward more oxygen debt at the end of the set. You’d think you’d do the one breath on nine strokes, first, but not last.
I read this from some guys’ weblog who is in masters class at Santa Clara Swim Center. He was bitching because Dick Jochums made them do SETS of those! at the END of the swim practice. At the end…he said they made him extremely stronger in breathing issues.
yes I do about 1x per week. In sets too. At the end of practice. We do 200’s with each length decreasing breaths. repeat 6x
I hate those things . I try to have my momma call me on those days just before the end of practice. j/k
It goes with the adage that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
Let me say this though, this is sort of off the subject, but I don’t know how those swim coaches see small cheats but they tend to specialize in spotting them. My daughter is on a swim team and one of her coaches will always spot somebody not holding an arm right, or not following a small detail in a drill. I thought that was just all a lie for the parents. I’d say to myself: “How did she see that? No way.”
I signed up for an instruction clinic last weekend for adults. And we were asked to do catch ups. The first few 100s I’m touching and switching hand to hand. And, as per the usual, fatigue sets in. I was on my way back to the start winding them up, and I missed touching my hand three or four times, now I got close enough where I thought they wouldn’t see; however, the first thing I hear when I got back was: “you started missing your hand there at the end several times.”
There was some pressure for us to do the drills exactly right, all the way, which is a far cry from probably what we really do by ourselves. It makes a difference because I was dead tired after all that stuff, another case in point for using a swim coach.
We do something close: 600m pull, first 150: breathe every 3/5, 2nd 250: breathe every 3/7, 3rd 150: breathe every 5/7; last 150: breathe every 7 (if you can do it). It’s usually in the middle of our session (4000-4500m).
I’ve done them a couple times from a workout I got off of active.com. I was never really convinced of their utility but it was a different workout so I was happy.
I’ve been doing em about once a week for a few months now, and I’ve found that they do help with my aerobic capacity. At a comfortable pace I used to breathe once every 3 strokes. Now, at about the same pace I’m breathing once every 4 strokes. The less breaths you have to take the more hydrodynamic you’ll remain.
I also like them because they are a good excuse to swim slow, and that happens to be my specialty.
FWIW, I question the benefit of doing these. Lung capacity is never the limiting factor for an endurance athlete. The classis example is to look at a max VO2 test on a treadmill. Even when the subject falls off the back because he can’t keep up - he’s still blowing off oxygen. In other words, he can take in more than enough oxygen, but can’t circulate enough blood to deliver it (cardiac output) or pull enough oxygen off the blood as it is delivered to the muscle (a-vO2 difference.) That being the case, I question the physiological benefit of such sets. If the argument is that it teaches the swimmer to be more relaxed and conserve energy, I suppose that’s feasible, but the “increased lung capacity” argument is questionable at best IMHO.
never to main sets of this, but lots of other sets. Back in the day we called it “hyposic” work (probable spelled that WAY wrong).
Anyways…I think breathing is very over looked in swimming, and is the one of 2 primary differences between other sports and swimming that make it so hard to do right…IMHO. I think those differences are:
You can’t breath whenever you want to, breathing must be planned. This breathing has a negative effect on your efficiency.
The medium in which you are moving (water) is much more resistance then air, therefore efficiency or inefficiency is amplified greatly.
Not to say that running and biking is easy to do right…I am a good example of that. But, its much easier to teach someone to bike or swim relatively well, then teach someone to swim relatively well.
So, I think the “breathing” drills help a lot. I do them when I am using my pull-buoy or paddles, and concentrate on even efficient strokes, normally at a couple seconds per 100 slower then race pace
I think they’re a carry over from the purely fish workouts. I was a distance swimmer on my swim team days, but the nature of the sport in the US is that everyone is expected to be able to throw down a competent 50 or 100 free for relay purposes. And you aren’t supposed to breathe much on those kinds of sprints on race day. If we took more than 2 breaths for a sprint 50, or 6-7 breaths for a sprint 100, coach would scream at us all day long.
These days, I’ll throw in a 3-5-7 set every couple of practices just for fun, and because it helps keep my freestyle mindful and focused.
haven’t done them lately, but growing up we did sets like that a lot. i was kind of into lung capacity in h.s. and used those, along with 25s, 50s, and 75s (yards) underwater. i could hold a lot of air, but i’m not sure that it made me much faster. it made the biggest difference on turns (especially backstroke), which doesn’t help you much in a race. that said, it certainly can’t be bad to increase your lung capacity and your ability to swim in oxygen debt.
I agree, there is not a ton of benefit for distance swimmers with these sorts of sets. More often, sprinters use this, as it is a huge advantage to be able to hold out on breathing (look back at the Olympic 50 meters and see how many breaths were taken). It’s too bad that triathletes don’t get more advantage out of this, because I was pretty decent at them in high school (I’ve pulled off a 75 meters without breathing, which was a huge rush).