Been swimming for about 3 months (always 'swam' but never any real extended period for fitness until now). Started bilateral breathing about 2 months ago, basically natural to me now. Also began lessons about 1.5 months ago (instructor is WSI and nationally ranked member of local college team).
At beginning, 25m of crawl was killing me. Took close to 2 months to get comfortable with 50m. Can now almost do 75m comfortably (in all cases, a break of about 15-20 seconds is all I need to continue).
Based upon instructor's comments:
- definitely exhaling in water
- stroke is OK, but head position is too high out of water (not tucked down enough)
- kick is lousy-- too fast and shallow, also tend to shift to a scissor kick as I get tired
This morning during a lesson, he asked me to freestyle 6 laps and after 4 I was blown-- took a 10 second breather before starting 5th lap and all semblance of technique was gone-- same for 6th lap.
While I am making some progress, it seems that each additional (continuous) lap is taking a month-- is this normal? I am probably spending a bit too much time recovering at the wall during my workouts, but not all THAT long.
What seems to happen is I begin to have trouble breathing-- at beginning I'm nice and relaxed, nice shallow relaxed breath, slow exhale in water (was exhaling through mouth, instructor told me to switch to nose, and am doing so now). At about 50m, breathing becomes deeper and less relaxed; by 67m, am sucking in air and beginning to gasp; when I put my head back into the water, I feel like I'm holding my breath and have no air (must be what drowning feels like). At that point it's just a matter of time before I'm done-- can barely get to 100m.
Your responses will probably be to post video, and I probably will, but in the meantime, here's what's REALLY puzzling me: I've been searching the forum for similar tales of woe, and I'll often find something along the lines of: "I was unable to swim more than 50/100/?? meters; then I found out I wasn't exhaling. Once I began to exhale in the water, my continuous distance went from 100m to 1800m in one day."
Is this kind of scenario realistic? I walk 3 miles a day, and upon occasion will simply continue and do 7 or 8 miles-- there's little extra effort in going further. Is is the same here?-- should you in theory be able to just continue? I was speaking to a relative who says he swims 32 lengths per day, and could go further except for the boredom factor-- that's the way it is with walking/hiking for me, but I don't see that happening with swimming my crawl.
Thanks,
Gerald
Exhale underwater - you can practice that separately, just play around in water to get comfortable.
It sounds to me as though your energy output is too high for what you are able to do mechanically and you are uncertain how to accommodate. I would focus on body balance and position, nice and easy swim, use fins to help get through the water, and sometimes use a pull buoy. Easy breathing. When you start getting breathless and panicky, slow down, maybe roll onto side or back while recovering breathing. Aim to turn around at the wall, not hang on to it.
I would also look into the Total Immersion program (and book) and try to find an instructor or a camp in your area.
http://www.totalimmersion.net/
Hope this helps!
VB
(P.S. It's OK to exhale through nose, mouth, both. Eventually you get fine control over that, too.)
I don't really panic-- it is quite uncomfortable, and all I want to do is get to the other end (which BTW causes me to try to speed up and ends up costing me more energy)
I think maybe this is the root cause of your problem. You really haven't learned to swim aerobically. You're swimming too fast for your current conditioning and technique to be able to maintain the pace you are swimming at. Try slowing down radically. You should get to a point where you're at a pace you can maintain for a long time. Once you can find that pace, and start swimming at it consistently, then I think you'll find you can start increasing the pace once you build your aerobic base.
I'm guessing you're trying to go out too fast. Try using a pace clock. Warm up, then swim a nice, relaxed, easy 25. Stop at the wall and get your time. That's your goal pace. Relax for 60 seconds. Now swim another 25, with the goal being to swim at or slower and easier than the first relaxed 25. Do an open turn and get your time, holding for no more than 5 seconds on the wall, then swim back, again at the same pace. Repeat, getting your time on each 25, but holding for no more than 5 seconds at each wall. Stop if you fall apart or your times start decreasing below the easy 25 pace, regroup and start all over again.
Concentrate on maintaining that pace. Deliberately sloooow down when you start to feel out of breath. Push hard off each wall, get down under the water and streamline, but relax while gliding -- it's the easiest and best part of each length. Concentrate on taking good, deep breaths when the "I'm running out of air; must thrash the water madly to get to the wall where I can breathe again" feeling begins. It's easy to hyperventilate when the technique starts to come apart at the seams, which of course is a vicious circle. Play games with yourself, see if you can pull out one more 25 after the feeling starts by staying long, loose, smooth, and easy. Tell yourself it's just a 25, then you can rest. Stop and regroup after that.
A 5 second pause at each wall ain't much, but it should enable you to check your time and make sure you're on pace. After a while, you should be able to maintain that EZ pace indefinitely.
I was one of those people who had a "breakthrough" single day when I progressed from struggling through 25 yards to being able to swim as far as I wanted freestyle. Both of us spent the early days just building up conditioning while struggling. For me, I needed to learn how to RELAX and swim economically -- only using the muscles I needed when they were needed, not swimming all tensed up (and the exhale thing too) as fast as I could go.
I was about 13 taking a "learn to swim competitive" 2-week class taught by a college swimmer. Just those 2 weeks really improved on the abilities I had from taking many summer Red Cross swim lessons.
Exhale underwater - you can practice that separately, just play around in water to get comfortable.
...
Easy breathing. When you start getting breathless and panicky, slow down, maybe roll onto side or back while recovering breathing. Aim to turn around at the wall, not hang on to it.
I would also look into the Total Immersion program (and book) and try to find an instructor or a camp in your area.
http://www.totalimmersion.net/
Hope this helps!
VB
(P.S. It's OK to exhale through nose, mouth, both. Eventually you get fine control over that, too.)
I do exhale underwater-- when I read the various relevant postings here I mentioned it to my instructor who checked me out on that.
I don't really panic-- it is quite uncomfortable, and all I want to do is get to the other end (which BTW causes me to try to speed up and ends up costing me more energy), but there's no fear or panic involved. (As an aside, when younger, I had taken what was then called 'senior lifesaving' by the Red Cross-- my swimming instructional experience was completely of the Red Cross variety, but I do recall being able to swim endless -- or seemingly so-- laps)
I have Laughlin's book and have seen the videos, and have been trying several of the drills-- they help somewhat but not to the point that I don't begin losing it after a couple of lengths.
Thanks,
-- Gerald
OTOH, while somewhat frustrating, the situation is not dire. Despite being in reasonable shape, this level of exercise for the last three months (30-40 min 4-5 times/wk) has definitely increased my aerobic capacity and general energy level as well as trim an inch or so off a 52YO waist :)
Hi Gerald, have you tried swimming with a pull buoy? Swimming without a kick is significantly less oxygen-consuming so doing a 100 or 200 pull to see what effect it had on your breathlessness might provide some clues as to the cause of your issues. I agree with Kirk that the basic cause is you are swimming faster than you can sustain at your current fitness with your current technique. Whether the problem is kicking too hard, bad body position, lack of aerobic capacity, that is a harder question. Kirk's suggestion is probably more basic, does the problem go away if you just swim slower?
Hi Gerald, have you tried swimming with a pull buoy? Swimming without a kick is significantly less oxygen-consuming so doing a 100 or 200 pull to see what effect it had on your breathlessness might provide some clues as to the cause of your issues. I agree with Kirk that the basic cause is you are swimming faster than you can sustain at your current fitness with your current technique. Whether the problem is kicking too hard, bad body position, lack of aerobic capacity, that is a harder question. Kirk's suggestion is probably more basic, does the problem go away if you just swim slower?
I've managed to start and maintain a slower pace at the beginning. (I seem to have a similar problem of pacing myself when I jog as well). As I mentioned, for the first length I'm nice and relaxed, the breath is shallow and all is well with the world. Same with most of the second length, but by 50m, I find my breath is getting more pronounced and deeper. I'm also finding myself puffing up my cheeks (while my face is in the water) at this point-- this happened a lot when I first switched to exhaling through my nose, but I've been working at it and now it beings to happen as I begin to lose steam.
A pull buoy sounds like a good idea. I'm also thinking of trying a snorkel simply to see if it's a breathing/hyperventilating/CO2 issue (I've used and am comfortable with a snorkel so not having to deal with the breathing may tell me something).
Thanks,
-- Gerald
bilateral breathing about 2 months ago
Why ? 95% of all swimmers do not do this - why on earth are they asking beginners to learn this ?????
The snorkel is a great idea - you will find out if you have a breathing issue or something else.
Also - the comment "kicking is too fast" tells you that you are trying too hard. Relax and see if you can swim with a pronounced 2 beat kick (instead of all the little kicks)- one kick for every arm pull - just as a drill.
Try this - swim 8-12x25 - and use as little energy / as few muscles as possible. Do the same thing with 50s. In between each one - adjust and see if you can improve - relaxing your arms / maybe your legs / make yourself as long as possible without forcing it.
Why ? 95% of all swimmers do not do this - why on earth are they asking beginners to learn this ??
Easier for a beginner to develop good habits. They don't have any bad habits to break.
I am in exactly the same boat. Once upon a time I was a distance runner, so I'm familiar with the concept of recovering while still running (slowing down until the ability to breathe more closely approximates the body's O2 demand) but swimming still takes it all out of me. If I slow down so that I don't need to breathe as much, I sink. After 2 months of swimming, I can do 50's in a 25 yard pool, but I can only do about four of them, after that I can only go 25 at a time. My daily yardage has increased as I've gotten stronger and fitter, but it is still discouraging to not see more results more quickly.
I have found that for me, anyway, aerobic gains seem to happen much less quickly in the pool, (perhaps because the arms are so much more involved than in running?)
I am very interested in ways for those of us without the aerobic fitness to go long and slow to get longer (and slower.) I used to love LSD days when I ran, and that is my ultimate goal in my swimming, I'm just having a very hard time getting there.
