I'm curious if most life-long swimmers think that breath control on turns is almost completely a mental game? I've always been very good at the mental aspect of sports....at least I think I have been. Being an endurance athlete my entire life and an ultra-endurance athlete for a while, it was basically required. No way to finish a track mile or a 50-mile mountain run without feeling some pain and enduring through it. I've climbed all of the peaks in Colorado that are over 14,000 feet (14ers), and I ran up quite a few of them, so I know that my body can deal with a bit of oxygen debt.
So...I was chatting with a teammate after workout today. Our pool is extremely warm right now due to hot weather -- they seem to be unable to regulate the temperature when the air gets hot. So he suggested that I go out to the lake to swim (some of the team is out there MWF).
I responded that I really need to focus on swimming fast, clean turns and breath control because those are my weakest areas, and that is best done in the pool. Open water has been natural for me. But having never swum competitively before, I only just learned to do flip turns recently. And I'm still struggling with keeping control of my breath, especially in short course. Long course I can manage OK because the turns are so far apart. Open water is a piece of cake.
He told me that controlling breathing on turns 90%-100% mental. I didn't agree. When I'm swimming at a level where my muscles need oxygen at a steady flow, to have to hold my breath for 3 to 4 seconds every 15-16 seconds while turning simply gets me too hypoxic after a few turns and then I start coming off the turns gasping for air. Sure, I can slow down a bit and keep my turns clean, but then I'm not swimming as fast. Thinking about my running days, without question I couldn't have ran as fast if every 15 seconds I had to hold my breath (no breathing at all) for 4 seconds. So I don't believe it's as much of a mental game as he might believe it to be.
Over the last couple of years, since I started competitive swimming, I've gotten better at the "technique" of breathing. I had never even thought about it before while doing sports out of water, but one can actually make themselves tired from breathing too hard. Turns out I realized I was inhaling and exhaling too vigorously, which would tire me out fairly quickly. I've been practicing inhaling and exhaling slowly, especially after turns, and I can tell it's making a huge difference in my breath control and speed. But I don't believe it's entirely mental. At some point, I think, one's muscles simply can't perform at the same level without a steady supply of oxygen.
What do others think? Is breath control on turns entirely or mostly mental or is there some physical and/or physiological aspect to it? And if there is a physical aspect to it, is it something that can be trained beyond controlling one's breathing (i.e. not inhaling/exhaling too vigorously)?
our club teams national coach once commented to me, "we teach the kids to breathe every other stroke in fly" and my reply back was, "Tell that to Phelps!" dead silence afterwards.
I think the appropriate response to this is "there aren't too many Michael Phelps' out there!" Michael is very rare in that he can breathe every stroke without altering his body position. Most of us can't do this. I still think it's better to get the air if you need the air, but for the vast majority of us breathing every other is faster IF it doesn't cause you to go into oxygen debt.
our club teams national coach once commented to me, "we teach the kids to breathe every other stroke in fly" and my reply back was, "Tell that to Phelps!" dead silence afterwards.
I think the appropriate response to this is "there aren't too many Michael Phelps' out there!" Michael is very rare in that he can breathe every stroke without altering his body position. Most of us can't do this. I still think it's better to get the air if you need the air, but for the vast majority of us breathing every other is faster IF it doesn't cause you to go into oxygen debt.
