help with breathing in the swim
Got the link to pictures from this weekend's sprint tri, including pics from the pool swim. Great shot below of my (poor) breathing technique. I've always felt like this was the way I was doing it, but now have documentation.
So, the question is, any suggestions on how to fix this? I have tried to get myself to breathe one goggle in, corner of mouth, many times, but (obviously, from the pic above) failed to accomplish this. Usually, I feel like my head is so low in the water, that if I'm not doing what I'm doing, I'm not breaking the surface of the water, which makes breathing somewhat difficult. Any and all thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
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A lot of swimming is counter-instinctual. If we want to get air, our instinct is to lift our heads out of the water, but what we actually end up doing is lifting the top of our head, bending the neck, which ends up driving our chin toward our chest and our mouth closer to the water - the opposite of what we want. Judging from your photo, you may be doing this. You want to keep your neck straight in alignment with your spine, as if there was a spike through your spine, neck, and straight out the top of your head - the spike is the axis you rotate around, and the spike sticking out the top of your head never comes out of the water. That keeps the top of your head down in the water, which will raise your mouth out of the water more.
How much body rotation are you getting? The roll to breath should be lead by your core rotation, not by your head turning first. And the body rotation on the breathing stroke is more pronounced than on the non-breathing strokes. My swim coach is always trying to get me to get more core rotation when I roll to breath - she rolls almost to vertical. And it's not just the shoulders rotating, it's the entire core. Think of it as rotating your belly button to air - you won't actually rotate that far, but that thought will help you initiate the roll from the core rather than the shoulders or head, and will prompt you to rotate further.
Two comments, Mike
First, what my high school swim coach (who did not himself know how to swim very well, but who coached a lot of great sprint freestylers - me not being one of them!) said to us: "You should just get your mouth barely out of the water. You know you're doing it right if you are always carrying a little bit of water in your mouth." Basically, he made us learn how to swim while feeling like we were being water-boarded!
Second, +1 on Kevin's comment: Longitudinal body rotation should lead, not follow both the head and the arm pull. Think of "triggering" both your breath and your backwards arm movement with your core first. The less actual pivoting of the head at your neck, the better; try swimming as if you have a cervical collar on.
Mike, I will need a little more info before we get on with correction.
1. How is your air exchange? Do you completely blow all the air out in the water and rotate with empty lungs for breath?
2. Not difficult to correct at all if your breathing is in order.
3. No bow wave in that picture, appears that your head is a little high. Proper head position creates a bow wave to hide breathing.
If breathing/ exhale and cycle is correct:
Ear on the shoulder focus, kick on the side arm extended, look straight down, rotate the whole body to the side with your head not separating only until mouth brakes the surface for breath, make sure ear contacts inner shoulder all the time, rotate back down, kick on the side, blow all air out.........Look up Terry Laughlin TI. He is great with that.
Give me a little more about your swimming or pictures/videos. We can fix it. Drill above is initial focus.
Once you get comfortable with gator breaths, another drill to try is "head lead body rotation." Start kicking with your hands firmly at your side. Then try and breath, focusing on the torso initiating the roll. This will be very hard to do in the beginning. Stay after it. The only way this works is if you have good horizontal position and don't lift your head as you no longer have your arms to "push" your head out of the water. You simply won't be able to breath at all (more than once) if you lift your head. Obviously only do this drill in a pool where you can easily stand-up. In the beginning, you can use fins to make it easier, but try and get rid of those as fast as you can and it certainly isn't a requirement to start with them.
Just a quick couple of thoughts.
1. This is counter intuitive but if you focus on pressing the chest that brings the legs up and the breathing may become easier as you create more of a wave in front of your head. General better body position.
2. Sometimes if I focus trying to breathe in my armpit (like open water) it is a little better.
3. Try bilateral breathing. As you get used to it you get more in tune with breathing mechanics.
Hope that helps!
I'll also see if I can get the lifeguard to take a few other pictures and/or video of me.
Thanks so much!!!
Just a note of the term 'bilateral' that I believe most people take for granted...there's a difference on bilateral breathing where:
1) breath every third stroke...left, right, breath, right, left, breath, etc., and
2) the ability to breath on both sides (ex, left, breath, left, breath or right, breath, right, breath)
Personally, I believe we should all know how to breath on BOTH sides, whether it's thru #1 or #2 above, it's a skill we can all use for various reasons. I'll get off my soapbox now!
I can develop a drill progression for dealing with this specific issue, if there is a need. As a developmental coach, I deal with this on daily basis. The foundation of this problem is air exchange in 9 out of 10 athletes. Incomplete exhale under water to be specific. That causes all sorts of side to side balance issues and stroke hitches as swimmers are finding ways to extend inhale above water cycle.
Without getting too much into bilateral breathing here, yes it should be foundation for all technique work and in this case can help evening out the rotation.
What I tend to feel like (which is probably nothing like what I'm actually doing) is that when I keep my head straight on axis and rotate my body, my mouth and right goggle are nowhere near the air,more like 2-4 inches below it. I don't know if this is because I'm doing something else wrong, or if I'm just totally mis-interpreting the proprioceptive cues I'm getting.
When in this position (below the water), I feel well balanced (did a lot of TI drills and EN ebook drills to develop a sense of balance). When I do skate drills, or kicking on my side, I find that i have to rotate almost entirely onto my back in order to get any part of my mouth out of the water. Since that's not practical when swimming, I think that what's seen in the picture is my best way of figuring out something.
Thanks again for your thoughts and time!
That is the correct soap box when you consider the sun in races can cause problems on either side on the way out or back!
What I feel like I experienced was significant difficulty finding the air when my ear was on my shoulder. By about halfway through the workout, I seem to have figured out that I could rotate more and pull a little bit harder at the finish on the breathing side, and find some more air. Not sure if I'm doing it the right way, but that was my 'fix' to feel like I was leading with my head more.
It was definitely an awkward swim, and I'm not sure that I was getting it right, but it felt like a step in the right direction. Aleks, if you're up for writing out a progression and it's not too much trouble, I'd love to give it a shot.
Thanks!
well and as this is one of the issues I too am trying to work. If there were to be a progression developed and posted through EN, that would be great.
Thanks,
Paul
So I made a conscience effort to keep the eye in or as close to the water as I could. The thing is you can see the water so if you can see water, just a glimpse, your doing ok.
As for your picture , when the surf is up or some white caps kicking up, that is how you want to breathe.
As far as water in the mouth , my position is fish F ... in it so fer git about that and lord knows what goes on in a pool with kids .
Just my thoughts , I'm no coach but have been in some water as a retired CG guy.
Mike, let me respond first to your few observations, than will talk drills.
Yes, being awkward is a good start. Second observation, I am a sinker, 5% body fat with big legs does not do me any good. TI drills, just like you, I have to rotate almost entirely on my back to find air. Kick on the side drill is the same, early, I rotate a lot over the 90 degrees, but than as I turn up the kick the air gets closer. The depth of lead arm will determine how close the air is too. More on that later.
The biggest difference is when we connect drill/ swim routines, I tend to easily rise more on the surface during the swim portion and air gets closer, the faster I swim the closer the air is as I ride higher. I hope it makes sense. We will get there.
More than happy to write the progression. Just give me a day or two to finish my Sunday race, I will write it hoping that our coaches will not mind , don't mean to overstep anything. I will also explain how to implement it as we are in the middle of the racing season.
Happy to help if I can.
Good luck on the race tomorrow! I really appreciate all the help.
I have a tendency to lift my head somewhat when I breathe on my right side. I can do it right, but only if I'm concentrating on it. Also, I wish we could see the rest of you, but the upper body line looks like your legs/hips must be low in the water...got to kick more to get them up. Swim coach would say you need to a lot more balance drills!
Ok, Mike, time to go to work. Sorry it took me so long, race, work, travel......you know how it goes, pop my head in here and get carried away with reading a post or two, all fun and interesting and next I look at the clock and eyeballs coming out......
We are going to devide the work in several phases, some very basic. Do not skip those as we will only move on when you are ready.
Given it is a race season, it is not ideal to get into stroke changes, but you gain instant benefit from better air exchange. We will use some of your warm up and cooldown time as well as aerobic/ Z2 sets for this. When it is time to swim hard, you swim hard and don't worry about this.
1. Phase 1, air exchange, full inhale/ full exhale under water
2. Phase 2, head position, front to back balance+ air exchange as above
3. Phase 3 , side to side alignment+ head position+ air exchange
4. Phase 4, full stroke
This can be done with some toys and without. Swimmers snorkel or freestyle snorkel is a nice tool for what we need to do, if you don't have it, don't buy it, we can do without. same for zoomers. You will see occsional use of board, will explain how and under what circumstance.
Phase 1
Drill 1: Prior to begining your warm up, at the wall, face it, extend either arm, place finger tips on the wall, ear on shoulder, inhale fully, rotate head straight down, complete, measured, not forcefull exhale under water, repeat with opposite arm and side. repeat for however many times you can, until it is very natural to empty lungs.
Focus here is complete air exchange. Emptying your lungs under water creates vacum, when body rotates for air and mouth opens partially, air rushes in without much effort. Continuos, uninterrupted exhale prevents CO2 build up and no signal to brain for distress occurs, no urge to breath, it becomes very relaxed breathing in above and out under water. If you are pausing your exhale for stroke or balance reasons, you are bound to feel breathless, urge to breathe, over rotation.........
Drill 2: During warm up, breastroke pull/ frestyle kick. Push off, streamline, hold streamline, continuos soft flutter kick, measured continuos exhale of air under water, time to inhale, breastroke pull, up, inhale, back down, looking stright down, blowing air out, soft kick entire time, focus exhale complete and uninterrupted. Very relaxed, no effort, focus on air exchange, now head position looking straight down.
Insert these two for the start, do them in 50s, give enough rest to pay back O2 debt and start all over. Report back. Keep in mind that in streamline, head is positioned so that you are looking staright down at the black line. This is also intro into head position work. We will do a little at a time. You can do these for your cooldown.
Will add more in next edition. What kind of kick are using?
Thanks so much!!!
Pete, not sure about wiki, but I will keep adding work here, just check it from time to time. If it evolves into something that some of you find helpful, we can have someone put it in, I don't think I am qualified to write for wiki.
What's next?
I am back, not full force, jet lag is killing me. Slept entire day yesterday, recovering from fast paced vacation, Serbian Sprint Nationals.....24 hour flying from Europe back......I will write the further drill progression tomorrow by noon. Anybody monitoring this thread, come back and check it, Mike, will get you back on track.
How did Serbian Sprint Nationals go?
I won a gold medal in Masters division, 9th overall, 750m-20km-5km ITU draft legal format, time 1:10:11. It was a blast. For the first time, climbed on the podium as no. 1. It was a small but very fast field, 50 athletes Still trying to soak in what just happened. Raced totally comando, not even timex and loved every bit of it. My son raced in kids race, on the same course, just shorter.
Thanks for your understanding. Good work and will keep it going. What are you racing this Sunday?
I'm racing a local sprint on Sunday, in Webster MA. Really looking forward to it. Biking has started to come around for me, for the first time in a long time. I'll keep you posted.
I can't tell you how much I appreciate the help. Timing is an absolute non-issue, as any amount of help is just plain terrific.
Ok, here we go,.
Phase 2, head position+ front to back balance+ air exchange
Head position is critical for front to back balance. Implications of "head high" are obvious. Key in recognizing this is where do you look as the arms are executing their cycle as you are exhaling. Second clue is hard to recognize by yourself, forehead exposure during inhale cycle.
Drills to reinforce propper head position while in racing season:
During regular warm up, easy freestyle swimming, focus goes to two things, look stright down, not at 45 degrees, not at 10 degrees, just straight down, relax, blow all the air out, nice and easy, all air out, looking stright down. Much like Terry's SSP work.
Drill 1:
With or without zoomers or snorkel, kick on the side, arm extended, ear on the shoulder, looking stright down, long body line, press on the arm pit, take your lead arm deeper if required for hips/legs to come up to surface. Clue: other arm resting on hip should surface all the way, your hand included, feeling of kicking downhill. At one point when you are doing this correct, there will be less need for air as it will start felling efortless. LOOKING STRIGHT DOWN!
All the air gently exhaled, slowly rotate the whole body with head until your mouth finds air, if you have to be on your back, that is fine, inhale full lungs, back in, look stright down, arm extended, ear on shoulder, blow out gently.
What you will find with zoomers, air will be closer, as your speed will closer match to when your arms stroke, less rotation will be required, one goggle out, one in, press on arm pit........Zoomers can be a good tool here.
This drill above combines 3 things, head position+ front to back balance+ intro to side to side alignment. You will find that on your weaker side, you will come for air more frequently, as your position is not as good on the dominant side. Tip the balance work in favor of the weaker side.
Do this drill instead of any kick sets during practice, it is a good conditioning tool too. Combine this dril as 25 dr/ 25 sw or 50/50, during swim put all of it to work, focus on exhale, look down, ear on shoulder when rotating, only until mouth brakes the surface, goggle in/ goggle out, pick up with the kick and pull so you come up to the surface. This will make you tired.
This is what I would like to see in phase 2. I don't load athletes with many drills, yet I pick a targeted one to accomplish the goal. Let's work on phase 1 and 2 now.
When swimming, you should always feel the inner shoulder brushing your cheek as you are looking down. That will position your ear close to the shoulder, it will also reduce drag further. think about where the eyes are, that is where the head is. Exhale completely.
When you have some time, youtube, search Pieter van den Hoogenband, look under water videos of his races, observe head position, also look Thorpe and Phleps in same videos. Watch how they "pack their head" in.
Have fun with this. I will keep a close eye on the thread. Anybody that has any suggestions, please chime in. Michael, I am sure you have some good ones.
I definitely want to try these drills, thanks. I also 'over-rotate' for air, but feel smooth and like I am gliding through the water even on breathing strokes. My problem comes from gulping air and ending up with gas or GI trouble later in the race. It is especially noticable when I swim the speed intervals in training, or swim in really cold water. Could this be casued by not fully exhaling? I have been trying to focus on breathing to correct this, and I have improved on the problem at slower speeds(HIM pace).