Breathing

You may be trying too hard and tensing up. All I can say is to try to stay relaxed. I know that sounds almost contradictory when you consider how hard you're having to work right now when you swim, but at some point it, with practice (there's that word again), it will make sense. I know a girl who had a breathing problem on a soccer field and ended up going to the hospital. It turned out that she was trying so hard and became so excited when she got a little out of breath that she would breath in too fast, and part of her throat would momentarily collapse closed from the sudden suction. It would open almost immediately, but the shock of that brief feeling of being unable to breathe would make her breathe even harder, and she was hyperventilating. She actually had an abnormal bit of cartilage that allowed her throat to close, so I doubt you have that exact same problem. However, trying to breathe out to avoid water and almost immediately breathe in will give you the same kind of shock feeling of being unable to breathe, because you are trying to get too much air through your windpipe all at once. When you feel as if you can't get enough air, you'll tense up and start trying to breathe even harder, compounding the problem. A new swimmer can easily fall into a sense of panic in that situation. Panic is always bad in the water. So you need to relax your breathing as much as you can to allow yourself to get more air. Does anyone have any kind of easy breathing drills Brenda can try? There must be some kind of exercise that would condition the breathing. It will come to you. Do you suppose a bird doesn't experience a little panic when it first learns to fly?

You may be trying too hard and tensing up. All I can say is to try to stay relaxed. I know that sounds almost contradictory when you consider how hard you're having to work right now when you swim, but at some point it, with practice (there's that word again), it will make sense. I know a girl who had a breathing problem on a soccer field and ended up going to the hospital. It turned out that she was trying so hard and became so excited when she got a little out of breath that she would breath in too fast, and part of her throat would momentarily collapse closed from the sudden suction. It would open almost immediately, but the shock of that brief feeling of being unable to breathe would make her breathe even harder, and she was hyperventilating. She actually had an abnormal bit of cartilage that allowed her throat to close, so I doubt you have that exact same problem. However, trying to breathe out to avoid water and almost immediately breathe in will give you the same kind of shock feeling of being unable to breathe, because you are trying to get too much air through your windpipe all at once. When you feel as if you can't get enough air, you'll tense up and start trying to breathe even harder, compounding the problem. A new swimmer can easily fall into a sense of panic in that situation. Panic is always bad in the water. So you need to relax your breathing as much as you can to allow yourself to get more air. Does anyone have any kind of easy breathing drills Brenda can try? There must be some kind of exercise that would condition the breathing. It will come to you. Do you suppose a bird doesn't experience a little panic when it first learns to fly?