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)?
Thanks for all of the feedback! Definitely some great information here.
Why are you holding your breath during turns?
I guess I should have been clearer. When I wrote "holding my breath", I meant that due to the fact my head is underwater during the flip and then in a streamline position when pushing off the wall, I cannot take in any air for approximately 4 seconds until I break the surface of the water again and take a stroke. During that time, I try to gradually exhale, purging my lungs of old air so that when I take my first breath off the wall, I can refill them. But that means for about 4 seconds, I'm not getting any fresh air into my lungs and I can really feel the effects of this in terms of muscle burn, especially after a few turns.
Is this the right way to do things? Or is there some other, better way to control one's breath during the turn that I'm not doing? I don't have a coach, so I've mostly learned everything I know about swimming from friendly advice from my teammates, people at meets, and (of course) my own personal experience, which may be anecdotal or incomplete.
Turns take time to master as someone who started swimming in adult life. Breathing should be natural, and controlled to the rhythm of the pattern, but going in the turn just take a deeper breath and lightly exhale throughout. After about a thousand or so done correctly, it should be natural
Perfect! Thanks for this information Steve. What you describe is very close to what I've been trying to do, but the problem is that when my rhythmic breathing pattern is broken during the turn, it really sets me back for a couple of strokes until I can recover and get oxygen back into my blood. A couple of less-than-optimal strokes in short course after every turn really adds up quickly!
at the lowest basic level, we are nothing more than an air pump. as much Oxy in, convert it to energy, exhale the exhaust.
the better you can do that, the faster you can go.
so the real task is improving your VO2 max, which can be done with breath control in workouts.
Being a runner, this is what I've always thought and felt about getting as much oxygen as possible to maintain the fastest speed possible. But obviously there really wasn't much concern with breath control and improving VO2 max. If it's possible to improve this through training, I will have to start working harder at it.
Thanks for all of the feedback! Definitely some great information here.
Why are you holding your breath during turns?
I guess I should have been clearer. When I wrote "holding my breath", I meant that due to the fact my head is underwater during the flip and then in a streamline position when pushing off the wall, I cannot take in any air for approximately 4 seconds until I break the surface of the water again and take a stroke. During that time, I try to gradually exhale, purging my lungs of old air so that when I take my first breath off the wall, I can refill them. But that means for about 4 seconds, I'm not getting any fresh air into my lungs and I can really feel the effects of this in terms of muscle burn, especially after a few turns.
Is this the right way to do things? Or is there some other, better way to control one's breath during the turn that I'm not doing? I don't have a coach, so I've mostly learned everything I know about swimming from friendly advice from my teammates, people at meets, and (of course) my own personal experience, which may be anecdotal or incomplete.
Turns take time to master as someone who started swimming in adult life. Breathing should be natural, and controlled to the rhythm of the pattern, but going in the turn just take a deeper breath and lightly exhale throughout. After about a thousand or so done correctly, it should be natural
Perfect! Thanks for this information Steve. What you describe is very close to what I've been trying to do, but the problem is that when my rhythmic breathing pattern is broken during the turn, it really sets me back for a couple of strokes until I can recover and get oxygen back into my blood. A couple of less-than-optimal strokes in short course after every turn really adds up quickly!
at the lowest basic level, we are nothing more than an air pump. as much Oxy in, convert it to energy, exhale the exhaust.
the better you can do that, the faster you can go.
so the real task is improving your VO2 max, which can be done with breath control in workouts.
Being a runner, this is what I've always thought and felt about getting as much oxygen as possible to maintain the fastest speed possible. But obviously there really wasn't much concern with breath control and improving VO2 max. If it's possible to improve this through training, I will have to start working harder at it.
