Obnoxious breathing

I have the same problem with these kinds of sets, in that the turn is a big problem. In a long course pool, this is less of an issue, but even breathing every 5 doesn't fit too well into the pool length. We used to do LCM 5x200 pull 3,5,7,9 on 2:45 when I was a kid. This is when I learned to breathe on both sides, as the coach explained we could breathe 4,6,8,10 if we wanted to breathe only on one side. I don't see a use for long sets of this type. Practicing no breath or low breath 25s or 50s to check on stroke imbalance, or do some sprinting with no breaths, just like a race, yes. But 3,5,7,9 by 25, 50 or 100 is a set I would never do on my own. The feeling I get during a race is not being out of breath, it is lactic acid overload. I practice this by going fast on long sets. Swim fast, Greg

Obnoxious breathing is what I call when your out of breath and are gasping for air so hard you make that weird honking noise.

Our "obnoxious breathing" sets are never quite that extreme (!!)--but the coach says we do them so that we can handle not breathing out of a turn when we are tired. I think the practice actually does help with that. :cool:

I agree that it DOESN'T work. Just training yourself to breathe every other is good enough to do the trick. If you want breath control, try breathing the 1st length every 3rd then the next length every 5th then going back to every 3rd, every 5th. I know that it may seem odd, I believed that too, but when I swam this way, it was all good. I got this idea by browsing through different master swim sites. This one particular site is located in the west coast called scaq. I read all of their workouts and enjoyed reading and NOW doing them with my team in texas. If interested their site is I think, www.swim.net. Their workouts are also in the forum on the usms site with Michael Collins. Another good place to get workouts.

I like to call it "Hi-Toxic" swimming :) Anyway, I find it more useful for a warmup set. Historically, I have had better practices when a hi-toxic set was done as a pre-set warmup (that is, a warmup after your regular warmup). I find that it expands your lungs in a way that will carry through the entire workout. Especially a distance workout. That's my 5 cents Joe Bubel

I had a girlfriend once who was an elite level NCAA swimmer who called it "HIGHpoxic" training - because she would push herself far enough that she would nearly black-out and would feel "high" for several moments afterwards. Perhaps as dangerous as drugs - but likely not as addictive. I do not recommend HIGHpoxic training - regardless of ability level.

Since breathing every so many strokes may help reinforce bad technique an option I use is to reduce the number of breathes (ie 4 breathes first 25, 3 breathes 2nd 25, 2 breathes 3rd 25 and 1 breath last 25) this also helps in keeping the head down and swimming going into the finish. With this method of hypoxic training there is no benefit on shortening your stroke and it puts everyone at a more even keel (I get as many breathes with my 13 strokes per my length as someone taking 16 strokes per length). Jeff

Remember also that when you're "out of air", you're really not "out of air". When your body feels the need to breathe, it's because your sensor for too much CO2 is going off, not because you don't have enough oxygen. Hypoxic sets help train your body's CO2 overload sensor deal with a little more CO2 in your body than it's regularly used to. You would never race a distance set breathing every 9... but if you do it in practice, then your body will feel like it has lots of extra oxygen when you race and breathe more often. Breathing every 5,7,9, etc. also helps bring your heartrate down in many cases. Very rarely will a coach tell you to "work" a hypoxic set very hard... it's usually about long smooth swimming. As you reduce the number of breaths, your body can adjust the heartrate, etc., and get comfortable. -Rick

Emmitt, Yikes. Thank you;) Why don't you like the hypoxic sets? (they are my most unfavorite!)

It's the HIGHpoxic swimming I don't recomend - mainly cuz they could kill you. Hypoxic swimming is OK as long as you do it for the right reasons. To my thinking, the place hypoxic swimming has greatest effect is when used as a technique improvement aid. The further you can go on one breath the less energy you are consuming. It forces you to work the tradeoff between speed and energy consumption.