Breathing??

Mark, are you trying to go too fast. When you run, doesn't it take 5 minutes or so before your breathing feels great. but when first warming up breathing is harder until your body gets used to it? And if you start out running too hard on your warm-up you are way out of breathe? So try slowing down a little bit, and don't be real forceful with the breathing. I know when I exhale, it is a very natural slow exhale over 3-5 strokes. Inhaling is a little sharper because of the time I have to turn inhale, and put my head back down.

I wonder if the drill where you kick on your side might help you. It can evolve into 6 kick switch, but at first you should just do it on one side across and then switch to the other. Basically, you are on your side in the water, the bottom arm stretched out(like you are lying on it), your face down nose in your arm pit, but don't bury your head, try to get good alignment of your head with your spine. kick across the pool in this manner exhaling into your arm pit. When you need to breathe, the only thing that moves is your head. Rotate it to the side to catch your breathe, and then exhale into your arm pit again. Do this all in a very relaxed manner. Speed is not the desired affect, getting used to a breathing pattern, and learning to swim on your side is. Even use fins to help with your balance and kicking in the water. Once you get good at doing it one side only, you can begin to add a switch. The top arm has been lying on your side, and you just bring it over like a stroke, the bottom arm strokes in the water, and you rotate to the other side. As you rotate, breathe, and then exhaling back into your armpit. Someone else can explain this better, and probably your coach can too, as it is a very standard drill. Sometime breaking things into pieces instead of trying to do it all at once is the way to go. If you are having trouble with the breathing, take almost everything else out, so you can just think of that. As this drill gets easier, you can start adding into the drill. I was working with my daughters friend who is thinking about swimming on team, and she was having issues with breathing, and this fixed it for her. Here is Coach Sue's description from the work-out forum. Check out some of the other drills in the work-out forum. Drills can help a lot: Kick on Side Drill, hand Lead (SK): Master balancing on your side with the bottom arm extended, the top arm tucked in at side, and head resting on arm. Face should be pressing down towards bottom. Rotate face up to breathe & quickly return to nose down position. Hips rotate completely to side. Alternate right and left side kick. Fins are a great option for less confident swimmers. Kick on Side with rotation: Same as above adding rotation from side to side every 6 to 10 kicks. Power from your hips and your body should roll as a unit. It is very important that upper & lower body is coordinated. This drill can be done for freestyle or on back for backstroke. Same drill from coach Mel's work-out site: 25 – Kick on Side. Bottom arm extended underwater in streamline, top arm rests on side, face looking toward bottom when not breathing. Rotate head to breath DO NOT LIFT HEAD. Switch sides half way across pool. 25 – 6 Beat Roll Drill. Kick on side (as described above), switch sides by taking half an arm stroke after every 6 kicks. Encourage people not to breath while switching sides. Rotate hips, navel, and shoulders all together with arm pull.

One thing that may help with your breathing is to focus on exhaling the full breath instead of focising on inhaling. Lots of now swimmers try to focus on inhaling and forget to exhale, and when it's time to breathe their lungs are still full. If you focus on exhaling, getting a full breath may be easier. Also, you may not be breathing often enough. Try breathing every 2, 3, or 4 strokes. To breathe every 2 strokes, choose a side and breathe every time you pull with that arm. Every 4 strokes would be every other time you pull with that arm. If you do one of these, be sure to practice breathing to both sides - your stroke will probably end up lopsided if you only breathe to one side. To breathe every 3rd stroke, breathe as you pull with your right arm, pull with your left arm, pull right arm, breathe and pull left, pull right, pull left, and repeat. Hopefully this will help you. If I've confused you, let me know.

No. this has not confused me at all. I think I probably am- -Thinking too much when I"m in the water ,but that's hard to just turn off. I do try though. -start off going too fast -not getting my shoulders out of the water far enough thus I create more drag/resistance. -and not exhaling enough. I am forcefully blowing out thinking to empty my lungs. I am turning my head to breathe in every 3rd stroke to the right. This all is hard to explain to my coach I think partly because he knows how hard I'm focusing and he is attributing all my errors to just "trying to hard." It's probably harder to retrain a 43 year old man than it is a kid. Thanks for helping and listening to me whine, folks. Mark

Many people think that breathing is the hardest part of learning freestyle. The most common errors are not exhaling fully and lifting your head to breathe instead of rolling to the side to breathe.

Thanks folks, I think I might ask coach can I breath on both sides, at least try it, bilateral breathing. Because he is having me breathe every 2nd stroke to my right. and I'm having to force air out to get room in on that second stroke coming up. It's taking an effort to push it out and I feel rushed to get it out so I can get some more in when I turn my head on the second stroke. But since I'm new, I just thought I was supposed to do it that way. I guess this is a trial and error thing, not set in stone. I just feel like I'm missing something and that this shouldn't be this hard to breathe. OH well, we'll see in the morning. There is this lady at the Y where I swim. She is there every day. I've seen her face once. Other than that, she's always in the water, for hours, like a windup duck. Back, forth, flip, back, forth. Graceful and syncopated and predicatable. I'm sure she's been swimming 1/2 of her life. She just barely kicks, glides along, skims the water, turns her head side to side on every third stroke. Absolute slow and perfect. I sometimes sit and watch her. Then I calmly get in the water and try to emulate. Quickly, I feel as coordinated as a drunk on a bicycle. But I try again, and again. I'm sure as she turns her head to the right she is seeing the pitiful middleaged man floundering around in the other end. She may even have gotten splashed from my flying water droplets. I know I'll get it, I envy not her stroke and technique now but her peace and zen-swim. She's completely at rest. If she ever stops, I'll meet her and shake her fin. Thanks for the help folks.

Midaged- I hear you. I see these people doing slow, comfortable stroke that glides through water, and I sit and watch and try to imitate, but i find myself kicking harder and harder so that my poor legs won't drag/sink and mess up my whole thing. One day, we'll get there.

Mark, It sounds like you are tense and rushing everything in general. Relax. A couple of observations: - When you say you are breathing every 2nd or 3rd arm stroke, that is a REAL LONG TIME between breaths. Terminology break: swimmers count by arm stroke. One pull with your right arm is 1. The next pull with your left arm is 2, etc. Therefore, if you breath every second time your right arm recovers, we would say you are "breathing every 4." Breathing every 6, which is what you initially described, is considered an oxygen deprivation drill (and is used as a form of punishment for showing up late to practice in some Australian masters clubs, but I digress...) An experienced swimmer competing in a middle distance freestyle event (say a 200 or a 400/500), will typically breath every 2, with no negative effective on streamlining. - I would be willing to bet that because you are waiting so long to breath, you are rushing your arm strokes and cutting them short to get to the next dang breath. We have a technical term for this: sprinting. - Lastly because you are new and you sound uncomfortable, you are probably very tense and fighting the opposing muscle group every time you try to move your arms or legs in any direction. So...to complete the picture, you're holding your breath, turning over your stroke at a faster rate than you might "normally" use when you find your groove, and giving your whole body a good isometric workout because you are tenser than a teetotaler at a keg party. WOW! No wonder you are breathless after only one length of the pool! In his wonderful web site, Coach Emmett Hines tells a story about a guy he calls “Splash.” You can read it at http://www.h2oustonswims.org/ (Go to the Articles tab, and look for “Splash and the XXLg Jockstrap”) See if it sounds familiar. So, what I would recommend is slow down, loosen up, and get comfortable in the water. Start with a relaxation drill while you are warming up. Face the wall of the pool. Start leaning back on your shoulder blades and kick lightly while leaning farther back and letting your hips float to the surface. Keep your head neutral (with a gap between you chin and your chest just about big enough to hold a large apple or orange) and feel like you are leaning on your shoulder blades. If you do that, your hips will naturally float to the surface even if you are barely kicking. If you have to kick “hard” to float your legs, you’re using your kick too much. Relax, lean on your shoulder blades some more, and let the natural buoyancy in your lungs float your body. You will float; even 5% body fat triathletes can do this. The point of this exercise is to really feel that you can float without effort, and to relax in the water. Once you have loosened up, swim your freestyle, but breath more often, like every 2 or 3, and slow down your arm stroke if you feel rushed. Remember our objective is for you to feel more comfortable in the water such that you can swim a 200, 500 or one mile comfortably. We’re not trying to break your personal record for the 25 yard free. Emmett has posted some other excellent articles to the h2oustonswims web site I think will be of interest to you. I would recommend “Breath How Often?” “Waiting to Inhale” (for rather obvious reasons) “Swimming in Circles” and “Of Air and Gravity.” Good luck and let us know how things are going. Matt

Don't give up! But I think you need to go easier on yourself. You are trying to become a great swimmer overnight. Me, I can't run. I get very winded, heart rate way high and want to pass out. But I'm sure if you taught me, you would have me start out very slow and build and teach me how to not make running so painful. However, I would not be ready for a 5K for quite some time. I'm sure that if a friend was in your shoes, you would tell your friend to do their best and that any improvement is great. Well, you need to tell that to yourself! You can do this, it is just completely foreign to you right now, but you will get used to it. My brother is a runner and a swimmer - can run marathons, even. He prefers running, but on occasion will swim when injured, etc. He says that swimming is incredibly hard compared to running. Now get up, dust yourself off and try, try again. Soon, you'll be swimming like a fish!

Swimming's definitely not easy to learn. Unlike many other sports, if you have bad swimming technique, you won't go anywhere very fast. I remember learning to swim when I was about 9 or 10. I would get so tired doing one lap that I would stop in the middle of the pool and pretend I had choked on the water just so I could rest!