getting used to breathing

+1 You only need move your head enough to have one eye out of the water. The key is to exhale underwater. Good form will not provide you with enough time to exhale and inhale in the same movement.

I am ok/improving on the mechanics of side breathing and exhaling with face in water, its more of a pressure/force question as the first response was around. How deep of breathing, how forceful or an exhale, how big of a gulp of air when I do rotate to take one.

I feel that sometimes I take too deep of breath to expell before the next one, and then after a few strokes its that I am forcing a hard exhale and then big inhale which eventually convinces me that I must be tiring (this is what I was/am not sure isnt just a normal exercise reality and to get comfortable with it). The flipside is not sure how little or shallow of a breath I can take and get by on, as I feel like if I take a quick sip of air then i can only do that for so long before i seem to revert back to bigger/longer breaths. Its basically a goldilocks problem...but helps to hear how hard others are breathing or how it is supposed to feel.

I am not an expert, but it seems your body is going to dictate how much "air" it wants with each breath based on the energy you are exerting with your stroke. I still consider myself a beginner after learning the proper freestyle about 2 years ago. Work on your geting your stroke as efficient as possible. Listen to what the others have said about breathing. Keep simming and before long you will be breathing naturally.

I have never really thought about this, but it brings up an interesting observation. For me, I do not think the volume of air changes when I inhale as my exertion rate goes up/down. In my training I usually breathe every 4 strokes but in the heat of a race may go to every 2. But if I feel like I'm breathing too much at 1 per 2 strokes, I will adjust to 1/3 strokes.

As far as volume goes, I think that is governed more by the amount of time in my stroke mechanics I have to breathe. Honestly, it's not a huge amount of time, only so much air I can take in in that time. I would be interested in hearing if others alter their breathing frequency as O2 demand goes up/down.

Edited by Oysterboy 2014-04-04 7:01 AM

Yes, I don't think I alter the volume of air I take in much as there is only so much time to breathe on a normal stroke cycle. I guess an exception would be some kind of breathing drill like breathing every 3-5-7 strokes, or before going into a flip turn--I probably slow down my stroke cycle a little to get in a deeper breath, but not in a normal swim set or an open water race. I would get more oxygen by breathing more often. If I'm swimming easy, I usually breathe every 3-4 strokes, if hard, it's a pattern like 2-2-3 or 2-2-4. I think the more relaxed and normal you can get your breathing, both inhale and exhale, the more efficient you'll be. It shouldn't be a really forced inhale or exhale when distance swimming. There may be a place for taking huge breaths, but I'm guessing it's more in sprinting (as in 100m and less), when you try to breathe only when necessary, butterfly (where your head is completely out of the water to breathe anyway) and the like. Background--I swam distances in high school (best 1500m time about 21 minutes) and now about 25:30. Generally FOP for my age group, behind the fish but in the top 10% of women in most of my races on the swim.

So just like there is a running rhythm there is a swimming rhythm.

You may not notice your running rhythm anymore - I know I don't but it's probably there. It naturally increases in depth as you increase your effort.

So swimming is apparently similar. I say apparently because i'm not an expert. i was just being "coached" on this yesterday. There is a rhythm to the whole arm stroke, kick, breathe process. Once you find your rhythm your breathing can increase and decrease with your effort level and you won't have to think about it.

So for what it's worth I was advised to work on my rhythm. I don't know if that's helpful or not. Like i said i'm not an expert. Keep swimming.

Rhythm has been mentioned several times in this thread. One thing that I am wondering about how consistent you are with your breathing. You mention after a "few" strokes. Is that every 3 or is it sometimes 2, sometimes 3, sometimes 4, sometimes 5, etc. If you are inconsistent you probably don't have a rhythm to your swim. I would start out breathing every 2 strokes - so pick a side and you are breathing on every stroke to that side. Ultimately it is better* if you can breath on either side. But to start out I would breath on one side on every stroke.

* the pro's and con's of bilateral breathing is another thread

Thanks for the comments. I breathe on my right every 2 at this point. My comment was around the eventual buildup of oxygen that I feel like I must expell to take another breath after swimming 100m+ as my breathing seems to be more big breath oriented than when I start a set, a general inconsistency with the balance of how much air to take in and effectively empty it before the next breath. I have been making progress on this lately and doing over 400m continual now with gas left in the tank as I've really focused on smaller breaths and making sure I keep my head low (this and staring straight to the bottom instead of a bit forward has helped my leg positioning a ton) and try to not exhale overly hard. So complex, and I am going slow.

If right now you can breathe only to one side then a rhythm like I mentioned above (2-2-4) might work, Even at race intensity I rarely need to breathe every 2, but 2-2-4 generally works. The longer exhalation lets you get rid of any excess air you may have managed to gulp in. If I'm swimming in open water (in a situation where I don't need to breathe to both sides--I can if needed), then I usually sight at the end of each 2-2-4 cycle.

I'm a 2 stroke breather as well. I'm getting way faster than I was (3,000yd+ long swims I'll knock out at 1:40/100 now). To me, it seems like the faster you are the more you can increase the number of strokes between breaths. This is because your cadence is likely higher. Right now I feel like a breath every 2 strokes is too much. When I was doing 2:00+/100, every time I tried 3+, I'd just be gasping shortly after. I start a lot of sets at 4 strokes/breath and then just default back to 2.

Somewhat back on topic... I had/have issues exhaling too. I'm see a coach and he makes us do 300yds on kicking for every warmup. On my own, I decided to exhale under water with the kick board and then only lift my head up to inhale. The first few times I struggled with this, which suggested I wasn't exhaling underwater since the sensation felt awkward and I had issues on timing (mostly breathing too quickly). After a week or so, I got it down and I think it's improved my breathing a lot. It's worth a try.