Now that I have been swimming for about 8 months, I think my stroke technique is coming along nicely. I get a good catch, I try to keep my arm at 90 degrees on the pull, I push at the end of my stroke, my pinky finger leaves the water first (thanks, Doug), high elbow with finger tips just above the water, hand enters flat a few inches and on the outside of my head, I roll, and I extend.
The thing that I think I need work on is breathing. Well, I’m asking how everyone else breathes while swimming. I tend to hold my breathe, exhale deeply while I turn my head to breathe in, and then inhale deeply. I keep hearing that you should slowly breathe air out when your head is under water. I can do this when I push off of the wall, but not when I’m in my stroke.
So, how do you breathe and how can I change my breathing pattern to make me a more effective swimmer?
Here are some of the things I think might be helpful for breathing:
-Breathe out underwater. Trying to breathe out and then in while your face is out of the water will only make you spend a longer than necessary amount of time rolled on your side, and you probably won’t get as good of a breath anyways.
-Learn to breathe to both sides. I frequently have a 3-2 breathing pattern, so I’m constantly alternating. Not only will this help prevent you from favoring one side over the other, it’s great for races too to be able to breathe to both sides.
-Also, during races, I almost always breathe 2’s, since I haven’t found a good reason yet to go even the slightest bit hypoxic during a triathlon swim.
-It may be helpful to learn to control your breathing with some slightly hypoxic breathing pattern sets, even something as simple as longer moderate pulls (300-400 yds), breathing 3-4-5 by 50 or something like that. By doing some hypoxic training, you’ll learn pretty quicly to exhale underwater, as otherwise you feel like your lungs will explode. Try it a few times just holding your breath and then again slowly exhaling and you should feel the difference pretty quickly.
In theory holding your breath till the last second then exhaling should keep you more buoyant and higher in the water. But that doesn’t work, at least for me, because I never really seem to get a full exhale when I try to wait and blast it out. I feel I get a better breath if I do a steady and consistent exhale while my mouth is under water. That also feels more reassuring and calming to me, by reducing the paniced nature of a quick breath out then in.
breathe out thru your nose underwater and then inhale when you turn your head through your mouth.
exhaling under thru your nose will expell all of your air - and in a consistent method.
practice on land or in the shallow end of the pool. bend over and make the freestyle motion with your arms - exhaling when your face is pointed down and then turning your head at the appropriate time to inhale through your mouth. Start on land - then move to the shallow end of the pool and do it in the water (but do it standing - no need to complicate things by trying to float too ).
Eventually you’ll get the hang of it - and can incorporate this with actual swimming - then move on to bilateral breathing.
In theory holding your breath till the last second then exhaling should keep you more buoyant and higher in the water. But that doesn’t work, at least for me, because I never really seem to get a full exhale when I try to wait and blast it out. I feel I get a better breath if I do a steady and consistent exhale while my mouth is under water. That also feels more reassuring and calming to me, by reducing the paniced nature of a quick breath out then in.
Same here. Breathing was a huge challenge for my first several months. The biggest help was making sure I get that air out underwater. I know it when I don’t because I get a very poor breath on that stroke, which then reminds me for the next one to do it right or I’ll be hurting.
BTW, I can breathe bilaterally fine. I was having problems with thinking that I had gills when I took a breath on my left side, but now I have mostly stopped that. I do breathe bilaterally fine. My problem is that I hold my breath until I start to roll my head to get a fresh breathe.
I’m getting a lot more comfortable in the water now and I will try this out when I swim on Sunday.
I’ll throw this out as possible advice but have never discussed with anybody so I don’t know if it’s valid or not. I always felt chronically oxygen starved until I started inhaling a comfortable amount instead of taking in as much air as possible each breath. “Comfortable” feels like a very small amount when compared to the huge gulps I used to take.
I will exhale smoothly just after I take a breath and just time it to exhale completely before it’s time to breathe in again, breathing deeply every time.
Unless you feel like you are getting fatigued far too soon by your breathing pattern, - I wouldn’t worry about it.
Seriously, - the swim is so trivial in Triathlons, I don’t know why technique is emphasized here. The fact is that one can suck at the swim and still do a great triathlon. That’s why I laugh so hard at that quote by Stadler about “they said a cyclist can’t win,” = so funny, - what a wanker. It’s the swimmers who can’t win a triathlon.
Seriously, - spend that time worrying about breathing in the weight room working your arms. Or just doing sets of 4 length swims with 10 seconds rest, Or practice navigating, - lifting your head every 300 yards or so. Navigating and swimming straight is far more important than when you and how your breathe…
Sheesh…
It’s like a previous thread on kicking: no propulsive value is gained by kicking in the Australian crawl. Kicking with fins propels you, this gives you a false “feel” of the water and your stroke, - considering how trivial, how short, and the little amount of time that triathletes spend in the water, - better leg training is spent running or on the bike. Get out of the pool, get into the lake.
Swimming is usually the first part of a triathlon. When triathletes know how to swim they exert less effort and can then focus most of their energy on the bike and run. Kicking warms the legs and prepares you for the exit from the water and onto the bike.
In general learning your craft is fun. My coach used to say that “the strong will take it from the weak and the smart will take it from the strong.”
You can be balanced in all three aspects of a triathlon and have no weaknesses. That is fun. One of the definitions of sport is play. Play at learning. Take what you learn in a pool and put it into practice in the openwater. This weekend I have my first openwater camp which starts in a pool by rounding marker buoys and drafting. We then take it into the lake and go longer.
I think if you only had to take in air when you breath, rather than doing both, you would fine that even more relaxing. Also, if you get hit with a wave when you are doing that forceful, fast inhale, that doesn’t sound good. You must sound like a locomotive going down the lane
I preface that I am a good open water swimmer, good enough to beat macca out of the water at pro-nats 03, and I know many very good open-water swimmers outside of the sport of triathlon, and plenty of great coaches. Almost none of these people breathe bilaterally. The only need for bilateral breathing is a set of circumstance that inhibits your ability to breathe on your chosen side. I posted an explanation on a separate thread that I will paste here.
“Also, despite the assertions of total immersion; most effective open water swimmers have very assymetrical strokes. Watch an open water race (like the one around manhattan). The winners have a big grab, a one sided breath and the a lunge. This technique uses the head as a source of stored momentum to carry you into the glide side that has less of a grab, like in the case of a thoroughbread potentiating the next stride with a flick of the head.”
In open water you are resting on a dynamic body of water rather that the the comparatively static situation in a pool. In these situations the most effective mode of propulsion is huge grabs followed by a glide phase (granted this reqires some learned surfing instincts). The reasoning behind this has to do with too many factors to go into (a sampling; changing angles and flow rates along with increased bouyancy reduces the effectiveness of kicking). The grab and surf motion that is common in the best swimmers is best utilized with an asymetrical stroke(you need one side to pull and the other to surf, this is of course simplified). This is also why you will see the best swimmers adapt their turnover to the fluctuations of the water, waves wakes etc.
Breathing is really secondary, imho. In alot of open water applications you have time to exhale and inhale head out. Also, the level of sighting involved also lends itself toa more elevated head, and accordingly time to breathe out while head is out.
Swimming does a very good job of increasing both inspiratory and expiratory strength, as these increase you will feel more comfortable breathing out under water. Once your expiratory strength increases you will find it easier and more comfortable to breathe out in the water. Also, I alwasy breathe out some under-water and some above, this is the best strategy in a triathlon when you are not sure if a wave or a person will prevent that next breath.
I just began swimming in January and breathing was a big problem for me. I would get a really bad headache and feel like I was gasping for air everytime I swam. What helped me out was to determine a comfortable breathing pattern out of the water, just by forcefully exhaling and inhaling. I then took this rhythm and applied it to my stroke pattern.
The biggest problem I had with breathing all of my air out under water and only inhaling while taking a breath was the uneasy feeling that I would inhale a ton of water. It was comforting to exhale and know your mouth was clear of the water and then inhale. What I did to fix this was to take a kickboard and hold on to the end of it with one arm. I would just kick until I needed to take a breath and would take a stroke with my free arm and practice inhaling only. This method allows you to roll your body just like your normal stroke.
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