stamina... or mental block

Actually you need O2 to create ATP from ADP and ATP powers the muscles.(I am a Dr. but Med School was 40 yr ago so I don't remember all the details.) The basic point is that you need O2 to power your muscles after 30-40 sec(anaerobic metabolism can handle that long) and the more you breathe, the more O2 you have.That balances against the fact that most swimmers lose a little of their streamline when they breathe so from that point of view the less you breathe the faster.There is a balance for everyone at each distance between the needs for breathing and for streamlining.

Derek: So, with the state of you asthma being exercise-induced, progress may be a bit slow, but, so long as you haven't suffered any alveolar damage, should still consistently progress to a normal level. Allen: Blood oxygen levels decrease as you swim, forcing the body to burn more ATP to help supply more oxygen to the blood. You are correct about CO2 build-up creating the breathing urgency feeling, but I believe that a relative balance of O2 to CO2 that favors the CO2 more than is normal would similarly create the urgency. So, a decrease in O2 would adversely effect that ratio. I'm not a doctor, though, so this may be a bit beyond my learning. A good blurb can be found here: express.howstuffworks.com/web-quest-exercise.htm In races, you breathe when you must. Breathing every three is great for practice, but, in short races, you try to keep the number of breaths to an absolute minimum, and, in long distances, you try to do the same but hit a wall, eventually, with regard to the limits of your body. Distance swimmers don't breathe every other stroke at the end of their races because it's more efficient, because it's far more efficient to not breathe at all, they do it because they must to keep conscious and moving.

Hi, just a quick update, and whilst laughter noises may not reach me over the huge distance :), I'm still painfully aware I must give this 'update' in the context of the initial posting. So... the time is far from astounding (but noteworthy speed wasn't the objective), however yesterday for the first time in my life did a non-interrupted 1km front-crawl in 50m pool with open turns. So with warm-up included (after which I just didn't stop), managed 20:53. After this did 5 x 100m and saw that with that 'settled' pace that feels like I could just go on forever (which is fantastic feeling for me considering the depths of despair I had few months ago) ends up being ~1.2s per metre (so I get about 1:55 - 2:00 or so per 100m chunks). So... it's far from any amazing stuff but I've NEVER in my life managed 1/5th of this even as per initial posting -- and in medium speed lane in the pool I had the satisfaction of 'blending in' without slowing anyone down. AND: afterwards felt normal, when got out of pool, breathing and everything was such that, instead of my previous absolute nightmares, it felt like I could just go back in :) I can't express how good it felt to break through this barrier. Mental but also, with changing after 100m to every 2nd stroke breathing, things now feel right and can just continue instead of the absolute panic and breathlessness that set in. Now the question: in order to crank this up length and speed-wise... should I just do longer and longer distances continuously? Or try the chunks of 100-200m and clock myself and push harder? Again any notable speed is not an aim here but I hope not to have a setback by doing the wrong thing. Thanks for all your previous advice and help. One of Murphy's laws (I'm showing my age...) says never try to reproduce a successful experiment, but this feels very reproducible :)

wow thanks guys- obviously a bit intimidated especially as speed was so far far down on my list until managed to even do some distances I never did in front-crawl in my life :) My 25m which so far only measured twice as curiosity was with breathing every 3 (overkill of course, just accelerated whatever I did normally) - ended up as best time 17 secs on the dot (before that did a 17:80). So I must decide whether speed beyond some improvement is really an aim - to put this in context, the fact that I can now do 1K continuously in front-crawl in a way that feels like "I could just keep going" and I'm not spitting my lungs out after every 100 or so, well, puts me mood-wise over the Moon. I've never been at this point and I'm of some 'age' :)... weird feeling to have a physical first at this point of my life... So I'm quite stunned by the science behind speed and real speed, so I must check what realistic expectations I could have for myself - will get again 'external' pairs of eyes to make sure after a very tedious re-programming of my brain for a much improved technique I'm not re-enforcing some remaining mistakes. So let's see :), once excitement goes away, I bet I'll start peeking at the watch and obsessing about it :) Thanks for all tips and encouragement, D.

... and apologies, so some key questions finally answered :)...: What is your sex, age, height & weight? 39, M, 172cm, 65Kg How many times a week do you swim? 3, last 2 weeks went up to 4 How far do you go per practice? used to do 500 at start then 100s, now my total is 1500m or so, I know it's nothing compared to the million kms serious people do per session... What sort of paces can you hold? I'm averaging seemingly around 1.2 per m, as my 100m is 1:50 to 2mins when getting into the sustainable 'relaxed' pace. 50m chunks in that rhythms seems consistent as it's just under a minute, unless I go nuts but then I can't sustain it. My main conundrum is what rhythm to keep that I can do lengths with (my original and still main aim) and not just die half-way through :) Do you train with a coach and a team or alone? solo, only had input for re-training completely from breaststroke, re-done frontcrawl virtually completely from scratch. any injuries? left shoulder used to really bother me, but amazing enough, not since I stopped *** stroke - otherwise all OK. Touch wood.

I am confused about what you mean by blood oxygen level.I am not familiar with research of O2 saturation while swimming,but that would be really interesting.I would think that O2 sat. might decrease slightly during sprints.The body's urge to breath is not related to O2 sat but to CO2 sat. While breathing every third stroke helps symmetry it must not be very efficient as there are very few elite male distance swimmers who use it. I'm with Ande, in that I wonder if you are trying too hard. I've been back in the water for 5 years now and am pretty fit, but a few hard 100s and I'm also done! Of course, being able to swim easy requires technique, breathing etc to be right!

Hi, just a quick update, and whilst laughter noises may not reach me over the huge distance :), I'm still painfully aware I must give this 'update' in the context of the initial posting. So... the time is far from astounding (but noteworthy speed wasn't the objective), however yesterday for the first time in my life did a non-interrupted 1km front-crawl in 50m pool with open turns. So with warm-up included (after which I just didn't stop), managed 20:53. After this did 5 x 100m and saw that with that 'settled' pace that feels like I could just go on forever (which is fantastic feeling for me considering the depths of despair I had few months ago) ends up being ~1.2s per metre (so I get about 1:55 - 2:00 or so per 100m chunks). So... it's far from any amazing stuff but I've NEVER in my life managed 1/5th of this even as per initial posting -- and in medium speed lane in the pool I had the satisfaction of 'blending in' without slowing anyone down. AND: afterwards felt normal, when got out of pool, breathing and everything was such that, instead of my previous absolute nightmares, it felt like I could just go back in :) I can't express how good it felt to break through this barrier. Mental but also, with changing after 100m to every 2nd stroke breathing, things now feel right and can just continue instead of the absolute panic and breathlessness that set in. Now the question: in order to crank this up length and speed-wise... should I just do longer and longer distances continuously? Or try the chunks of 100-200m and clock myself and push harder? Again any notable speed is not an aim here but I hope not to have a setback by doing the wrong thing. Thanks for all your previous advice and help. One of Murphy's laws (I'm showing my age...) says never try to reproduce a successful experiment, but this feels very reproducible :) Now the question: in order to crank this up length and speed-wise... should I just do longer and longer distances continuously? Maybe, what are your swimming goals? you said you swam: "1km front-crawl in 50m pool with open turns." in 20:53 It's great you did a continuous 1k & held 62.65 per 50. I suggest you work on everything: Technique, conditioning, strength & speed Learn how to do flip turns and do them Improve your pushoffs and glide What sort of suit did you wear when you swam the 1k? Get a speedy suit. WORK ON YOUR SPEED 62.65 is pretty pokey and you could greatly improve by being much faster at 25, 50 & 100. What are your times for 25, 50 & 100? Test them soon, post your results here, then Train to improve them & Retest What is your sex, age, height & weight? How many times a week do you swim? How far do you go per practice? What sort of paces can you hold? Do you train with a coach and a team or alone? any injuries? Bump up your training.. Doing TIP 265 is likely to help you the most Train for SPEED: do Help my Speed is Horrible Help My Speed is Horrible! - U.S. Masters Swimming Discussion Forums Train for Speed endurance Train to swim longer faster Whatever you do and measure improves. Have a friend video you swimming, POVs: straight ahead, from the side, & ideally underwater put your vids on youtube and post a link here and ask for feedback watch videos of great swimmers and copy their technique. there's plenty on youtube start with: Michael Phelps freestyle multi angle camera - YouTube Read Swim Faster Faster apply a few ideas to your training. You've got a lot of low hanging fruit to pick you can swim much much faster keep us posted, Ande

I think you probably need to build yourself up again. Sure, continue your distance work, but also try to push for improvement of your times in smaller distances. Figure out what time you reasonably want to achieve for the distance you seek, and then break it down into 100 times, factoring gradually increasing fatigue. Then, try to consistently achieve the first 100 time. Once you have that, move on to your projected 200 time goal. From there, 300... etc. Eventually, with some skill, resolve, and, perhaps a few adjustments in your expectations, you will build up to where you want to be. --Sean