Breathing while Swimming

How old are you? If young and in otherwise good health, you're probably just reacting to indoor chlorinated water, working out too hard, etc. If you practice bilateral breathing, stop! Breathe on your good side every stroke! If you are 40+, male, and have shortness of breath, it's unlikely but possible you have some atherosclerosis reducing blood flow in your heart arteries. Ordinarily, I wouldn't suggest such a thing, but I just found out last week a highschool teammate (he's 51) had very similar symptoms, and after months of progressive worsening, during which his doctor suspected a variety of red herring problems, he was finally and correctly diagnosed with angina and had angioplasty. Not to panic, but you probably should get any symptom like this checked out. By the way, my friend's back swimming and doing some of his best adult times. The bottom line is this stuff can be fixed, even if it's bad. There's no reason not to get it checked out.

How old are you? If young and in otherwise good health, you're probably just reacting to indoor chlorinated water, working out too hard, etc. If you practice bilateral breathing, stop! Breathe on your good side every stroke! If you are 40+, male, and have shortness of breath, it's unlikely but possible you have some atherosclerosis reducing blood flow in your heart arteries. Ordinarily, I wouldn't suggest such a thing, but I just found out last week a highschool teammate (he's 51) had very similar symptoms, and after months of progressive worsening, during which his doctor suspected a variety of red herring problems, he was finally and correctly diagnosed with angina and had angioplasty. Not to panic, but you probably should get any symptom like this checked out. By the way, my friend's back swimming and doing some of his best adult times. The bottom line is this stuff can be fixed, even if it's bad. There's no reason not to get it checked out.