Breathing

Originally posted by SWinkleblech I usually don't feel like I am running out of air when I swim using every three strokes. My arms and legs start to feel tired before I feel I am running out of air. So either I am that slow that the breathing doesn't bother me or playing the trumpet when I was growing up has given me some mighty lungs. It looks like I have to correct myself :) There are two aspects of delivering oxygen to your muscles: 1) getting oxygen into the blood, 2) delivering oxygen from your blood to your muscle fibers. It is possible to have a high capacity for absorbing oxygen into the blood but poor capacity for delivering it to specific muscle fibers. A well trained runner who doesn't swim regularly might have excellent ability to take in oxygen but poor capilarization of the muscles used in swimming with the result that breathing will not be the limiting factor in their ability to deliver oxygen to the muscles. Actually, 2) would probably be better stated as ability of the muscles to utilize the oxygen available in the blood supply. Now, to try to wiggle out of my brash simplification. An earlier poster commented that elite swimmers need to breath more often because they do long underwater pullouts. But this can be turned around to say they are able to do long underwater pullouts because they breath more often. So, ask yourself, why don't you do longer pullouts? If the answer is that it leaves you out of breath then you might benefit from breathing more often before and after the turn. When you say "I don't usually feel out of breath when I swim using every three strokes." are you referring to training or racing? Back in my running days I can remember running with one training partner who never really breathed hard but who couldn't run faster due to muscle fatigue, I am pretty sure that if they had elevated their breathing they could have run faster before suffering muscle fatigue. There is a possibility that your perception that you don't need more air even though your muscles are fatiguing is incorrect and that if you elevated your breathing you would find it delayed your muscle fatigue. I also found that my muscles fatigued less if I elevated my breathing before I arrived at a hill rather than waiting until my breathing naturally elevated. Likewise, you might find that if you purposely elevated your breathing early in your race you might delay your muscle fatigue. Kind of like the way that by the time you feel thirsty it is too late to stay optimally hydrated, your autonomic adjustments to breath control may not be optimal. Anyway, I oversimplified and I admit it.

Originally posted by SWinkleblech I usually don't feel like I am running out of air when I swim using every three strokes. My arms and legs start to feel tired before I feel I am running out of air. So either I am that slow that the breathing doesn't bother me or playing the trumpet when I was growing up has given me some mighty lungs. It looks like I have to correct myself :) There are two aspects of delivering oxygen to your muscles: 1) getting oxygen into the blood, 2) delivering oxygen from your blood to your muscle fibers. It is possible to have a high capacity for absorbing oxygen into the blood but poor capacity for delivering it to specific muscle fibers. A well trained runner who doesn't swim regularly might have excellent ability to take in oxygen but poor capilarization of the muscles used in swimming with the result that breathing will not be the limiting factor in their ability to deliver oxygen to the muscles. Actually, 2) would probably be better stated as ability of the muscles to utilize the oxygen available in the blood supply. Now, to try to wiggle out of my brash simplification. An earlier poster commented that elite swimmers need to breath more often because they do long underwater pullouts. But this can be turned around to say they are able to do long underwater pullouts because they breath more often. So, ask yourself, why don't you do longer pullouts? If the answer is that it leaves you out of breath then you might benefit from breathing more often before and after the turn. When you say "I don't usually feel out of breath when I swim using every three strokes." are you referring to training or racing? Back in my running days I can remember running with one training partner who never really breathed hard but who couldn't run faster due to muscle fatigue, I am pretty sure that if they had elevated their breathing they could have run faster before suffering muscle fatigue. There is a possibility that your perception that you don't need more air even though your muscles are fatiguing is incorrect and that if you elevated your breathing you would find it delayed your muscle fatigue. I also found that my muscles fatigued less if I elevated my breathing before I arrived at a hill rather than waiting until my breathing naturally elevated. Likewise, you might find that if you purposely elevated your breathing early in your race you might delay your muscle fatigue. Kind of like the way that by the time you feel thirsty it is too late to stay optimally hydrated, your autonomic adjustments to breath control may not be optimal. Anyway, I oversimplified and I admit it.