I just started swimming in Jan. I have no problem with the technique of breathing and can breathe to either side. The problem that I have is getting enough air into my lungs. I have tried exhaling under water and have struggled with that. If I swim any distance longer than 300 I get a horrible headache and I assume this is from gasping for air. I am in good shape and feel that this is keeping me from making gains in my swimming.
I would appreciate any advice on breathing drills etc.
If you can’t exhale underwater then that’s a problem with breathing techinique. You’re probably gasping for air and having trouble getting enough air because you’re trying to exhale and inhale when you should be just inhaling. Try exhaling through your nose underwater. Sometimes it helps to slow down and relax and that makes it easier to get the rhythm down.
OK here is my advice. Take it for what it is worth.
Stop swimming laps. No point in developing bad habits due to poor form. Next time you go to the pool, find a time when nobody else is around if you want, and start with this very basic drill.
Stand facing the wall about 1 arm length away.
Extend arms to the gutter and hold on.
Put your face into the water, and start kicking to raise your lower body.
Now practice rotating to your normal breathing side take a breath all while kicking to keep you elevated, face back in the water, exhale. Make sure you completely empty your lungs under water, repeat.
Practice breathing to both sides this way. If I was teching you how to swim, I wouldn’t let you swim anymore laps until you were comfortable completely exhaling under water.
Thanks for the advice. I never knew how important proper breathing technique was. Here, I have been working on all of the other stuff and forgot about basics. What a dumbass. I would say that I am a guy with a nice stroke that cant breathe properly.
doing this drill with the kickboard is much better then trying to do it holding onto the wall. Holding the wall you are just teaching yourself more bad habits since you are holding on with both hands, both arms extended. You are not incorporating any body roll into the breathing pattern when you hold the wall.
When you do this with a kickboard, hold on with both hands on the back edge of the board, kick with head down in the water. then take a stroke with your right hand, as you roll onto your left side, take your breath and return hand to the board. Then repeat with left hand and take your breath as you roll to your right side.
Another thing that might help is to time your exhalation. If your head is underwater for 3 seconds between each stroke, time your exhalation to take the whole 3 seconds. Get to the point where you aren’t holding your breath underwater.
Thanks for the additional input Mike. I haven’t had any swimming lessons in a long time. I was trying to remember the breathing drills from when I was little.
And may I throw in that the last littlest exhale, for me, is a sharp-ish blow out the nose–an out-snort–just as my nose is breaking the surface and the inhale begins. Maybe I am putting to fine a point on it, but my body started doing this on its own, I think to stop water from entering my nose. I didn’t know I was doing this until I thought about it.
I do that too. I must sound like a steam locomotive coming down the lane. I think I grunt under the water when I am battling with my paddles. Now that I think about it, I must be a really obnoxious swimmer. No wonder the lane next to me is always open.
Here’s another tip: you may be over kicking and consuming more oxygen than you are able to bring in for your current stroke technique (legs burn a lot of oxygen on turbo mode). In other words, don’t go anaerobic. Try to slow down your kick (you’ll have to have good water balance to do this- press the buoy or T, swim downhill, push your chest down, etc.) and increase your breath rate to every stroke or every three if you can do it.
A lot of gaspers in my pool tell me they feel they’ll sink if they don’t kick hard; the answer is work on your balance and slow down your stroke a little instead of going turbo all the time. That should handle your tendency to go anaerobic.