Breathing Problems

hey, Eagleboy You are surely on the right track when you talk about breathing from the belly button! The next step, having mastered that, is to think about breathing from your back. However, to get into position to practice the sucessive steps, start by sitting comfortably in a chair, breathing from the belly button. Next, continue by thinking about expanding your ribs by inhaling against the back of the chair. (It's kinda hard to think that way while you're swimming, but that's the way it goes...) Having mastered that technique, swimming again now, think of expanding the ribs by inhaling from the sides of your rib cage. Then, when that technique becomes natural add expanding the throat cavity to its full openness. Of course, even more than the inhaling technique is the full understanding that the most important thing for the swimmer to be aware of is the need to exhale fully and forcibly with the face submerged. The way I put thse techniques into practice is to think of nothing else as I swim 50 repeats, crawl stroke, as a warmup. Do three or four x 50 with each successive technique exclusively, then proceed to the next. Thus: belly, back, sides, throat, and last, by exhaling con tutta forza! Janis Noonan, a year or so ago, gave us her voice teacher's secret of how to begin to master easily the technique of breathing from the belly button, although she rightly called it "breathing from the diaphraghm". It was simply to stick out your tongue and pant like a dog. Once you get started on that track it is no problem. If you get to wondering if you are on the right track, all you need do is go through the panting trick again. One more thing, and I apologize for not having the writer's name and exact title, but your library should be able to get it for you if it is not on the shelf. The book is called The Alexander Technique and Swimming. Or maybe it is the other way around! It was published in England just a few years ago, and has a Chapter devoted to breathing for swimmers that is masterfully presented so that one can fully appreciate all the aspects of the breathing problem for swimmers. If you go to this Alexander Technique book, please be warned that the author's viewpoint about competitive swimming is likely to be vastly different from yours. And, frankly, I recommend that you avoid reading the rest of the book, since he spends much time and volubility in saying unkind things about swimming coaches and instructors. But the breathing chapter is really great, especially to one who had previously thought of the chest as being a cavity and the lungs as being an expandable bag! I just gotta mention that I began writing these thoughts when the clock was in a real cool mood, as one of my nieces said, reading 20:02 20/02 2002. And nothing like that can ever happen again in the history of the world. Welll... unless we change our clocks to maybe like Seconds Only !

hey, Eagleboy You are surely on the right track when you talk about breathing from the belly button! The next step, having mastered that, is to think about breathing from your back. However, to get into position to practice the sucessive steps, start by sitting comfortably in a chair, breathing from the belly button. Next, continue by thinking about expanding your ribs by inhaling against the back of the chair. (It's kinda hard to think that way while you're swimming, but that's the way it goes...) Having mastered that technique, swimming again now, think of expanding the ribs by inhaling from the sides of your rib cage. Then, when that technique becomes natural add expanding the throat cavity to its full openness. Of course, even more than the inhaling technique is the full understanding that the most important thing for the swimmer to be aware of is the need to exhale fully and forcibly with the face submerged. The way I put thse techniques into practice is to think of nothing else as I swim 50 repeats, crawl stroke, as a warmup. Do three or four x 50 with each successive technique exclusively, then proceed to the next. Thus: belly, back, sides, throat, and last, by exhaling con tutta forza! Janis Noonan, a year or so ago, gave us her voice teacher's secret of how to begin to master easily the technique of breathing from the belly button, although she rightly called it "breathing from the diaphraghm". It was simply to stick out your tongue and pant like a dog. Once you get started on that track it is no problem. If you get to wondering if you are on the right track, all you need do is go through the panting trick again. One more thing, and I apologize for not having the writer's name and exact title, but your library should be able to get it for you if it is not on the shelf. The book is called The Alexander Technique and Swimming. Or maybe it is the other way around! It was published in England just a few years ago, and has a Chapter devoted to breathing for swimmers that is masterfully presented so that one can fully appreciate all the aspects of the breathing problem for swimmers. If you go to this Alexander Technique book, please be warned that the author's viewpoint about competitive swimming is likely to be vastly different from yours. And, frankly, I recommend that you avoid reading the rest of the book, since he spends much time and volubility in saying unkind things about swimming coaches and instructors. But the breathing chapter is really great, especially to one who had previously thought of the chest as being a cavity and the lungs as being an expandable bag! I just gotta mention that I began writing these thoughts when the clock was in a real cool mood, as one of my nieces said, reading 20:02 20/02 2002. And nothing like that can ever happen again in the history of the world. Welll... unless we change our clocks to maybe like Seconds Only !