Breathing control for swimming

[TSandM]

I've done all my swim tests so far sidestroke, because like you, I couldn't master the breathing for the freestyle.

But this spring, I got some coaching for the first time. What the coach (who is one of our best friends) taught me was this: There is actually a sort of hollow formed between your neck and your shoulder that is somewhat protected from the water when you are lifting your arm to bring it forward for the next stroke. You tuck your chin into that space to take the breath, and you don't end up sucking in a bunch of water when you inhale. At that moment, your torso is rotated as well, lifting that shoulder slightly out of the water.

If you do what I used to do, and try to LIFT your head up to get your mouth clear of the water to breathe, you slow yourself down a ton, and worse, you splash water into your mouth, suck it in a choke (or at least I did).

I don't know if this description will help you very much, but if it doesn't, at least the information that good coaching can solve this problem should help. The day my friend worked with me, I went from being able to swim about twenty feet before choking to being able to swim the whole length of the pool, so the improvement happens fast.

Good luck with this!

 

[Bob Vincent]

Practice ...

 

[mistressmotorsports]

If you want to practice breathing during the freestyle stroke, one way is to do it holding on to the wall of the pool. You basically grab the pool edge with both hands while floating face down, and then kick just like you would if you were swimming. The only difference is that you won't be moving your arms, they are busy holding the wall. Then, practice turning your head and breathing. Since you don't need to concentrate on actually swimming, you can fully concentrate on breathing during this excercise. Might help. Good luck and congrats on taking up the challenge.

Mike

 

[emttim]

I'll have to take a look at the sidestroke and the elementary backstroke...yeah I've been doing the breathing drill where you hold on to the side of the pool, kicking your legs and doing the breathing routine without moving your arms since they're busy holding onto the wall, been doing that already...it's interesting, at my pool lesson today I improved a lot and I didn't really do anything special or different, so eh.

Another thing my swim instructor has been having me do is restricting my breathing in the sense that he'll have me push off from the wall and just flutter kick with arms stretched out in front of me and try to go a certain distance with say only 2 breaths, so it's helping me to breath out slower through my nose underwater. I've been improving on the breathing thing too actually, it got a lot easier to do freestyle today, and I went from treading water for 1 minute to treading water for 2 minutes...crap's tiring.

All in all, today's lesson went a lot better than last time, so hopefully something's clicking....at any rate, I'm at least getting a lot more comfortable in the water. I don't freak out at all anymore if I get tired in water too deep to touch with my feet because I can just tread, or if I'm too tired for that, swing my legs up and float on my back.

 

[CJ Waid]

The only thing I can add to this is counting.

When I do the Forward Crawl (free style I guess it what a lot of people call it), I count strokes and work on my breathing based soley on the number of strokes I take.

I breathe on every 4th stroke, and I exhale slowly through my nose (it is almost just like controlling breathing while scuba diving, slow and steady), and then I turn my head to the very back when I breathe.

I am probably just confusing you, never mind.

 

[emttim]

The only thing I can add to this is counting.

When I do the Forward Crawl (free style I guess it what a lot of people call it), I count strokes and work on my breathing based soley on the number of strokes I take.

I breathe on every 4th stroke, and I exhale slowly through my nose (it is almost just like controlling breathing while scuba diving, slow and steady), and then I turn my head to the very back when I breathe.

I am probably just confusing you, never mind.

Actually, you're not, my swim instructor had me doing that last time, taking breaths after every 4-6 strokes. I'll actually probably make a habit of that....a lot less work than breathing after every stroke, and seems like I only need more oxygen every 4 strokes or so. *shrugs*

 

[hvulin]

You have to get the right tempo! Arms, legs and breathing should be coordinated! To practice this coordination try to remember the arms tempo and then grab the wall of the pool and practice (just stand inside the pool) - breath in above water then submerge your head and breath out... You typically do it: swim 1 length of the pool then 10-20 breaths (breathe in above, breathe out below) and then pool length again...

btw. when swimming, you should look at the bottom bellow you, then just turn your head to one side (I always use right) so you can have a look to the right with at least one eye and breathe in... you shouldn't be looking in front of you since it takes a lot of energy (take a peek from time to time so you don't hit the wall)
breathing should be as close to normal as possible (you don't have to breathe in every time your right hand does the turn - I usually do it every third cycle) - you can practice this hand movement on dry land - just bend down and pretend to swim...

one more thing: to get and stay horizontal you use your legs, not hands... speed mainly gets from the legs - hands are for steering and some more power (when you get this right you'll be able to hold your head straight and out of water - with your hands slightly bent and doing shorter strokes)

 

[cruisegirl]

The only thing I can add to this is counting.

When I do the Forward Crawl (free style I guess it what a lot of people call it), I count strokes and work on my breathing based soley on the number of strokes I take.

I breathe on every 4th stroke, and I exhale slowly through my nose (it is almost just like controlling breathing while scuba diving, slow and steady), and then I turn my head to the very back when I breathe.

I am probably just confusing you, never mind.

This is actually what I do too. Before I tried for my O.W. cert. I took a swimming lesson to learn to float and just get more comfortable in the water. She worked with me on swim strokes a little too. I did my O.W. and was fine. But felt fatigued sometimes. So my goal was to be able to swim laps. I started doing 1 lap at a time, then rest, then another lap.... Now I'm up to 8-10 laps depending how energetic I am....lol.... the point is I breathe on every 4th also. You'll just get into a rhythm if you have a number to count to-1,2,3,4--1,2,3,4--1,2,3,4. It helped alot. The first few times you'll not be coordinated so stay shallow til you get in a rhythm. It makes a difference and helps with breathing control for diving too......

 

[covediver]

when you swim, are you looking straight down at the bottom of the pool? Is your chin almost tucked into the chest? If you are, you might try lifting the chin a bit to elevate the head. That way when you rotate to breathe you may not get the backwash. Also, don't swim right next to the other person. If someone is beside you, you can get their wake.

 

[StevenN]

Excellent thread! I recently joined my local master's swim program to get in better shape and improve my skills in the water. I'm having some trouble with the breathing rhythm also. It does seem to be getting better the more I swim so I'm pretty confident that with time it'll all come together. Just keep doing it.