After being "spoken to" by the lifeguards about training SDKs, I am wondering how dangerous it really is to do multiple full 25 SCY SDKs.
Consider this set:
Fins on.
10x/2:00
This is just an example. Basically I'm referring to any set that contains multiple full 25 SDKs on a fixed time interval.
I've seen multiple people post sets like this in their blogs.
I've heard that on some age group teams the coach will demand that swimmers complete N full 25 SDKs on some fixed interval or everyone does it over.
The above observations would suggest that training full 25 SCY SDKs is a reasonable thing to do, but I've talked to some coaches and guards who seem to genuinely believe that even going past mid-pool underwater is just asking for trouble.
For a reasonably fit masters or age-group swimmer (Let's say a "BB" or stronger swimmer between the ages of 10 and 70 who can comfortably train 4x1hr/week), what do you think:
-Sets like these are generally safe as long as you don't do something stupid, like intentionally hyperventilate to the point of making yourself light headed before your push-off.
-Sets like this are generally safe, but you can never know if you have an un-diagnosed medical condition that renders them very dangerous so you shouldn't do them.
-Such sets are a little risky, but it's a risk you have to take to get really good at SDKs.
-If you do this kind of training regularly, you will eventually pass out under water and possibly die.
-The modern world is sufficiently rampant with litigation that no one can admit that sets like these are safe, even as anonymous vote on this forum.
I'm on the lifeguards side here. Every year we lose a few healthy swimmers to shallow water blackout. Last one at NBAC here in Baltimore last year and I saw there was another a week or two ago. www.independent.com/.../
You say you feel fine and that's the key kinda, that's what makes it dangerous, in shallow water blackout you feel fine until you just blackout. You can deplete your CO2 in your blood before the swim and train yourself to withstand more CO2 buildup. Enough so that you will stay under past the point where your O2 is depleted.
That's kinda the key mechanism, CO2 buildup makes you surface, not O2 depletion. You don't sense O2 depletion but that is what will kill you.
So in the end, with partners or as part of a coached workout, fine. On your own with no one else paying attention, so such a hot idea. The risk percentage might be relatively low but the consequences are as high as can be.
Sounds like the guards don't want to:
+ have to rescue you,
+ get out of their chairs, or
+ write a report.
Your words make it sound like the guards are being lazy. IMO, not wanting to have to rescue someone from a potentially deadly situation is not lazy - it might just be thoughtful prevention of a potentially hazardous situation.
IMO, not wanting to have to rescue someone from a potentially deadly situation is not lazy
Agree 100%. Part of a guard's job is ensuring he/she doesn't need to get out of that chair.
my team does a kick set, instead i do underwaters :D
And I bet you get a better workout from the set.
Most of the posters to the thread seem to assume that the main point of doing underwaters is to improve breath control. IMO that's at best a secondary goal; the primary goal is to improve speed and endurance of your underwater kicking. Once you're on the surface you're not kicking as hard.
Even in theory I don't think you work your legs as hard on the surface as when underwater, and in practice the disparity is even greater b/c swimmers tend to use kick sets as recovery between swim sets and this tendency is more pronounced when you are using a kick board and chatting with others.
But of course to work on underwaters you have to actually BE underwater so hence the need for breath control...
As far as the question asked by the thread title: sunruh is right again that it is very individual. So what follows is true FOR ME and your mileage may vary. I am not tall and have average/small sized hands and feet...but I *have* been blessed with floppy ankles and a high lung capacity.
For me the risk of doing a 25 underwater with plenty of rest is pretty much zero unless I smack my head on the wall or something. I could do 25 underwaters at 7 years old before I even started swimming year-round, and can still do 50 no-breathers, so it is hard to take seriously the notion that death can result from a 25 no-breather unless I am already pretty short of breath.
If you do many of them and don't recover between them, certainly the risk is there. But I don't see what is so magical about the 15m barrier that some propose as the limit, either: that's pretty far out there, farther than most people do in practice or in races. It is not hard to imagine sets in which someone -- anyone -- struggles to reach 15m on each repeat.
If you want to work on underwater kicking in a serious manner -- more than 1-2 kicks off the walls -- there is no safe distance. So it becomes a matter of not ignoring warning signs or doing something stupid. For me the warning sign is a need to pee (which I never give into, of course!), which occurs before any spots or narrowing of vision or diaphragm spasms.
I think this question gets to the real point. I do shooters with and without fins very regularly, but one of the points of doing them for me is to know just where the 15m mark is. Because I dabble in the 50 back, I care both about how to SDK well and also about when to stop.
If I raced the 50 free or the 50 fly I might practice my intended breathing pattern from time to time. But I don't race those events, and aside from such practice I see no point in face-down efforts without breathing. To the contrary, because I race pretty much only 100s and up in face-down events, and because the shortest of those events still take slow-twitch me about a minute at best, I see far more point in practicing efficient breathing technique than in practicing holding my breath. If I want to practice keeping my head still I can put on my snorkel.
One of our assistant coaches assigns "breath control" sets pretty often and I always tell her that I refuse on principle to do them.
Agree!
Breath control sets generally seem to me to have little value. Exceptions:
1) Training yourself to not breath until N strokes after the breakout. I'm convinced not breathing on the breakout stroke is faster. If you are going to do this in a race, you need to train it in practice. I essentially never breathe on the breakout stroke in fly or free unless the total distance is 500+.
2) Breathing alternate sides in freestyle. This helps smooth out the stroke. As an added benefit it gives you the ability to check out where your competitors are. I'm not saying we should breathe every three all the time, but it's great practice and we can all benefit from being good at it when we want to do it.
3) Low breath count sprints. For freestyle races that are not dominated by the aerobic energy system (50s and 25s) the cost of oxygen deprivation would appear to be compensated for by the speed benefit of not breathing. This should be practiced.
Since the longest you can stay underwater in a (non-breaststroke) race is 15 meters, does it really make a lot of sense to do underwater 25s?
What about the principle of overload, that without overload there is no (or minimal) growth?
By the way, my team does underwater 25 kicks and I hate them. :)
Yes, they are awful. Perhaps I am subconsciously looking for an excuse to forget about them.
Since the longest you can stay underwater in a (non-breaststroke) race is 15 meters, does it really make a lot of sense to do underwater 25s?
By the way, my team does underwater 25 kicks and I hate them. :)
I do underwater DS breaststroke. It really helps with my feel for the water and timing. I also do dolphin kicks, and I think that the last few kicks that get me to the wall really help. I can finish 25 easily, and I let my respiration rate come down in between reps. This thread is still making me second guess something I have done for years.
Is swimming 25 fly without breathing the same thing?
My understanding is that there isn't the same principle of overload, because the issue isn't muscle strength so much as tolerance of CO2. What about the principle of overload, that without overload there is no (or minimal) growth?
Yes, they are awful. Perhaps I am subconsciously looking for an excuse to forget about them.
My understanding is that there isn't the same principle of overload, because the issue isn't muscle strength so much as tolerance of CO2.
I'm not sure. For a 25 SCY SDK, especially with fins, I think muscle strength/endurance is at least equal to, if not more limiting than, CO2 tolerance for me.
