My 14 year old daughter just recently swam a 50 freestyle at 24.55. Unbelievably she took 9 breaths!!! Doesn't that seem like a lot of breathing for a 50? Does anyone have any imput?
thanks,
Whitney
Whitney, I recently got a chance to swim with Dara Torres and interview her for a magazine article I wrote. She told me that she breathes a lot, even on 50s, that her coach has looked at it and found the way she turns her head to breath is so streamlined and efficient that it does not slow her down.
I think I have read than Inga de Bruijn takes a breath on almost every stroke in the 100.
I offer these above examples as an alternative to the orthodoxy. I personally swim faster sprints by limiting my breaths to 1 down, 2 or 3 back on the 50; but unlike Dara and Inga, I've never held any records.
This said, a 24.5 is such a short time that the breaths you take on the way back probably don't even reach your muscles until the race is over. So there's also that to consider, too. The urge to breath has less to do with a need for oxygen than a build up of CO2 in the blood. I think you can learn to tolerate this with practice, at least those record-holding deep sea free divers learn to, holding their breaths for 7 minutes at a time.
Whitney, I recently got a chance to swim with Dara Torres and interview her for a magazine article I wrote. She told me that she breathes a lot, even on 50s, that her coach has looked at it and found the way she turns her head to breath is so streamlined and efficient that it does not slow her down.
I think I have read than Inga de Bruijn takes a breath on almost every stroke in the 100.
I offer these above examples as an alternative to the orthodoxy. I personally swim faster sprints by limiting my breaths to 1 down, 2 or 3 back on the 50; but unlike Dara and Inga, I've never held any records.
This said, a 24.5 is such a short time that the breaths you take on the way back probably don't even reach your muscles until the race is over. So there's also that to consider, too. The urge to breath has less to do with a need for oxygen than a build up of CO2 in the blood. I think you can learn to tolerate this with practice, at least those record-holding deep sea free divers learn to, holding their breaths for 7 minutes at a time.
