In all of my years of coaching swimming the number one complaint I always get is “I can’t breathe when I swim”. If this is something that you struggle with here are a few tips for you:
First of all, keep at it. Swimming is something that may take some time and practice to develop. If you are a beginning swimmer try to put at least 3 swim workouts a week into your training program. Be patient with yourself. Having good form swimming is very important to improve the efficiency of your stroke thus increasing your speed. However, developing good form takes time especially if swimming is not something you have done for a long time.
Second, if this means slowing down, then slow down and develop a stroke and breathing pattern that is comfortable for you. Once you have established a relaxed pattern with your breathing the speed will come with additional practice.
Lastly, although this may seem like common sense to many, make sure to exhale while your face is in the water. Develop a pattern of steady exhalation and inhalation without holding your breath. There really shouldn’t be a point in your stroke where you are holding your breath. Be sure to exhale fully as your face breaks the surface of the water. As soon as your face breaks the water inhale until the instant your face is to return underwater. Practicing this will help you to form a pattern of constant inhalation and exhalation without interruption, and will make swimming much more comfortable.
Good Luck!
Nikki Ditsch
9 responses so far ↓
Eric Atnp // January 21, 2007 at 3:34 am |
Good thoughts Nikki, I have found that many beginning swimmers that get tired quickly during swimming are going to fast and are not actually getting any air when the go to take a breath. Sometimes slowing things down can make all the difference in the world. Remember, go slow now to go fast later.
Eric
karlmccracken // January 22, 2007 at 1:49 pm |
Good advice. My front crawl is terrible – completely awful in fact, and I’m at that point where I think I need to get some professional help again. In this situation, your advice is even more relevant!
To help me improve my technique, I’ve been using Terry Loughlin’s Total Immersion, which focuses on a build-up of drills to assemble an efficient swimming stroke ‘from the bottom up’. What’s interesting is that I took most of last year off (yeah, I know . . . ), but as soon as I got back in the pool, I could see that my stroke was much nearer to what it should be than it was before I started the drills.
In other words, my body had learnt the kinesthetics, and my nervous system had become hard-wired to ‘this is how you swim’.
I still suffer from the “I can’t breathe when I swim” problem, but now I’m wondering if it’s not a case of my ’sinking’ body shape, but actually a case of practice potentially making perfect!
Karl.
garyd // January 22, 2007 at 3:29 pm |
For those of us that learned to swim later and have not swam our entire lives (and like Nikki been good swimmers for that long) this is great advice!
One of the hardest things for me to do has been to learn to get over the fear of breathing out while underwater. This fear causes problems in my turn, but it also causes a lot of issues when I start to get tired. What happens is I get tired and then I am trying to breath out and in very quickly while my head comes out….. which I can not do. So I’ll start lifting my head, etc. And it only gets worse.
One thing that has helped me in my goal of proper breathing is forcing myself to bi-lateral breath no matter how hard I’m swimming. If I can’t bi-laterally breath than I know I need to slow down a little.
Last week was a good week for my swimming! I have definately noticed the benefit of focusing on swimming for the past few weeks (and a little before Christmas).
I’m not swimming like Eric (another person who learned to swim late… giving me hope!) but I’m improving and feeling more “at home”.
nikkiditsch // January 23, 2007 at 7:08 pm |
Thanks for the comments everyone. Another thing I forgot to add into my post was to make sure to work on only one thing at a time. Sometimes we get so caught up with perfecting our stroke that we try to fix it all at once. Focus on one drill/problem area at a time. Like Karl mentioned, let your body learn the kinesthetics of the proper movement before moving on to a different problem area. Sometimes slowing down, or relaxing and letting your body adjust to the proper form.
zappoman // January 24, 2007 at 6:37 am |
I’m a complete Total Immersion (TI) convert! I strongly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t tried it… but don’t expect it to make you an Olympic swimmer over night.
I’ve been in and around the water my entire life. I don’t remember “not knowing how to swim”. As a Cub Scout I remember swimming a mile in open water to earn a merit badge. So when I first decided to take on triathlon I just assumed I could do the swim part easily. What I discovered is that swimming and swimming long distances efficiently are two very different things.
At first TI was really hard for me, I stopped swimming my “old way” and totally devoted myself to the TI techniques… and it took several months before I felt like I could swim again.
But now that I am comfortable with it, I feel I can swim effortlessly and efficiently. I never feel like I “have to breath”… I just roll into position as part of my stroke and the air is just there. I don’t have to think about breathing bilaterally… because the air is always there every 3rd or 5th stroke, and I just breath.
Now, I would still like to swim faster…. but I know I can swim effortlessly, and jump out of the water, rip of my wetsuit and be out of T1 in 60secs or less… and then I’m on my bike, and I will catch up with you.
And I credit Total Immersion, and that effortless swim, with giving me the ability to run down most of the field in front of me in every race I’ve raced.
nathan // February 1, 2007 at 4:34 am |
I started learning competition swimming for my high school this summer. I’ll have to say, it took a full week of work to learn how to breathe in sync with your freestyle stroke. The thing you have to think about is the exhale. If you don’t get that air out, it just occupies your lungs, and on your next breath you don’t get new air into your body. The thing that was so foreign to me was how to get rid of that much air with your face in the water. Now, I consider myself a fairly strong swimmer and breathing seems as normal as just walking around. Air just comes out of my mouth and nose in perfect timing, and on the recovery, I get perfect intake. I saw advice in these comments about taking things slow and I couldn’t agree more. You have to learn to walk before you can learn to run. Same with swimming, once your timing works on a slow swim, you can speed it up, and your breathing will improve much more. But the last big thing to remember is avoiding breathing every other stroke, never drop below three. Two isn’t enough to get rid of the air.
grant giles // June 15, 2007 at 5:15 pm |
I am new to tri-training and I have a question regarding warm-up and cool down.
I swim intervals a couple of times a week with a fellow who has been competing for many years. He stresses warm-up including easy swimming, drill and kick and a thorough cool down. Warm-up is usually around 800m and cool down 300 – 400m of easy swimming or drilling down. Total workout is 3000 – 3500 m.
Another fellow who swims at the same time (but not with us) always starts his swim with a 400 build and goes hard after the first 100 – 150 m. He then does a main set of intervals totalling between 800 and 1000 m and his warm down is always 50m. He says 400 build as warm up and 50 m cool down is more than adequate.
I may be new to training but this seems to be inadequate for warm-up (if going hard after only 100 – 150m could be called warm-up) and warm down. This seems to contradict all principles of training and athletic performance that I have read about.
Comments?
Thanks
shanelgurle // October 5, 2007 at 7:05 am |
i have a 12 min swim 2marrow and to me it seems easier when you go from the deep end to the shorter end because when you from the deep the the shallow it seems like you first start kicking hard the as you get closer to the shallow it doesn’t take as much work. but when you go from the shallow to the deep you start off kicking slow but when you go to the deep you need to kick harder. My question is how do i survive this test and im in 12th grade and i am a weak swimmer?
Joe // October 9, 2009 at 9:14 am |
First of all sorry for my bad english/
I have a question, I need to know what I should do in the follwoing situation:
sometimes while am simm in the sea I drill got some water in the wrong tube ( the one for breathin) the problem in such sitution I can get the water out but I cant breath at all the air doesnt wanna get in it’s like my tube blocked out( the air comes out but doesnt come in). what
I should do ESPCTIALLY I sometiumes swimm in deep water in the sea. Thanks in advance.