How To Swim in COLD Water Without Dying!

ice swimming and cold plunges have become an integrated part of societies all over the world swimmers Open Water enthusiasts and self-improvement Advocates swear by the health benefits of taking a dip in bone chilling Waters at temperatures sometimes below freezing why on Earth would anyone put their body through this trauma in the first place maybe it's a mental challenge a daily reminder of gratitude or a long time bucket list experience but whatever your reason for taking the plunge if you do choose to dip your toes in The Frigid Waters I'm going to show you how it can be done in a way that's safe enjoyable and rewarding now if you want to take a dip in cold water then there are certain things you need to be aware of and in this video I want to show you the science behind how our bodies adapt to cold water the risks Associated to this wild Endeavor and a few Pro tips to help you in your journey of slipping below the surface now the first thing I want to do is talk about what happens to your body I broke it up into four different phases the first is the cold shock response now pretty much anyone watching this video and let me know in the comments has experience going in the water that's really cold whether it's a pool a bathtub ice bath cold plunge whatever let me know Down Below in the comments but the first thing is this sudden gasp for air it's almost like suffocating we've all experienced this at some some more than others and you feel like almost helpless if you can't get out of the water and it takes a lot of mental control to just keep yourself in that environment now the risk is that if you have this sudden gasp of air and you're in water that's deeper than you can stand and you have to tread water and it's chaos then you might inhale water and if you're gasping for air and water goes down the wrong pipe you can think what happens so we want to be very careful there now the next thing that happens in this cold shock response is you have a rapid increase in breathing and this can lead to hyperventilation so you're breathing really hard this increases your heart rate your blood pressure goes up if you have any cardiac problems this is especially going to be a problem check with your doctor and of course your skin receptors are just going nuts your skin has no idea what's going on basically your skin is telling your body that it needs to retain heat so the heat the blood actually leaves the vessels in your skin and basically is being pulled into the center core of your body essentially to keep you alive so that's the first part that's the cold shock response now the next part is really really unique and the human body is so powerful this is adaptation and the more you put yourself in this situation the more you're actually going to adapt so that's a good thing it can also be a negative thing and I'm going to talk about some of the risks that happen if you get too comfortable being in the cold water whether you're doing a swim an Open Water Swim a cold plunge Polar Plunge ice swimming whatever your body is going to adapt from these repeated exposures to the cold shock response to your cold track response is going to be desensitized over time and this can actually lower your comfortable temperature tolerance so you can actually get comfortable in lower and lower temperatures over time and I have here a beautiful arrow that this repeated exposure makes the cold water exposure a non-novel experience basically your body is just getting used to the cold and it's adapting both physically and mentally as well and so over time if you're swimming you can actually maintain a better stroke technique in colder water because your body is just used to this activity you can stay in the cold plunge even longer after your body adapts you have the after drop so your body adapts you're in the water and then you get out of the water you get out of the ice whatever you're in and this is the first 30 to 45 minutes after you're out of that environment so after you swim you get out and you're still cold you might be shivering it might actually intensify because what happens is if you're in the open water and you're swimming you're actually generating heat so you're doing physical activity you're swimming you're keeping yourself afloat you're generating heat your skin has no idea what's going on because it's trying to sweat because you're working out you're generating heat but then your skin receptors are like hold on guys I'm freezing out here so pull in all the heat so this actually really confuses your body and you're trying to get to the back to homeostasis and it can take up to 30 to 45 minutes for that to actually start to happen so depending on how long you're in that cold you have the reheating process and that can take up to four or five hours after being out of the water so depending on how long you're in the water if you're in a cold plunge for two minutes three minutes if you're going for an Open Water Swim of 30 minutes 40 minutes 50 minutes one hour regardless of how long you're in there you're going to have a reheating period And depending on how long you're in that cold that's going to increase the reheating period now there's a number of different risks that I want to talk about and then we'll talk about the signs of those risks risks and some tips for how you can overcome them but first I want to thank today's video sponsor aerofit aerofit is the official breathing partner for my swim Pro and it's a tool that I've personally use over the years to improve my accessible lung capacity and even swim faster now it's really easy to use and it starts with a three-step test to get your Baseline and then the app will set you up with a personalized training program then the workouts take less than 10 minutes a day and all you have to do is follow the app and adjust the resistance levels on the breathing trainer you'll see the difference in just a few weeks because the exercises strengthen your diaphragm and the muscles between your ribs so that you can inhale more air with every breath that you take and that makes breathing more controlled and it's also going to help you with your sleep and your recovery so if you're ready to take your breathing to the next level make sure you check out the link in the description and use the code Maya swim Pro to get 15 off your aerofit order now let's talk about these risks we have hypothermia that's probably the big one on your mind let's break down hypothermia and how you can get there and how you can avoid getting there and hypothermia you have to understand there's three phases the first one is shivering we've all experienced this you're cold you start shivering your body is basically trying to just generate heat for itself create like internal friction and so we've all experienced that now the second phase is when it gets dangerous this is where you can actually have a weak pulse slowed breathing essentially your body is starting to shut down so you haven't shut down yet but you're transitioning from shivering and that's not working and then your body's essentially shutting down and then phase three is absent breathing and you can lose your pulse so you're essentially dying at that point and we never want to get there so we really want to understand when we're shivering that's the sign if we can't control our breathing and we can't stop from shivering we need to get out what happens is that swimmers and those who swim in the cold water and they experience these plunges regularly you're not actually the best judge of this happening to you and that's why it's so important to be in a group we'll talk about that what can happen is you build this tolerance this adaptation because it's a non-novel experience and you actually are not a good judge of experiencing these problems yourself like you might have slurred speech and some of the other things that we're talking about and you don't even realize it and you're setting yourself up for failure so it's really important to acknowledge and here are some of the signs if you're swimming it's the claw hand it's exactly what it sounds like another expression is fisting so imagine that you're swimming and you go from normal hands you're pulling good stroke you're getting tired you're getting colder and colder by the minute by the stroke and your hands basically just shrivel up and you start to lose motor control of your own hands and you kind of look like these T-Rex arms in the in the water imagine the water is 800 times more dense than air and Claw hands ain't gonna help you pull forward so that's one of the signs that it's too cold and you need to get out another sign is stroke length and body position basically you're getting tired your distance per stroke is going down and your body's just shutting down it can't it can't hold up anymore you it's tried and now it's failing and so these are things that you might not even notice but someone else might notice them about you you could also have slurs in your speech so I already mentioned this but this is where basically you can't speak coherently you don't even know this is how happening another thing is the mental side starts to get delayed so you might have a lack of recall in information for example if you're in the water with a group and someone asks you hey you look you look pretty cold you're not moving very fast you got the claw hands do you know what day of the week it is do you know what your brother's name is and you might not be able to answer these questions that you should be able to know the answer immediately so if you have a delay in recall that means you've been in the water too long and it's time to get out so here are a few tips if you are going for the cold plunge the Polar Plunge the ice swim The Frigid open water in the sea swim in a group it is so important to do this type of activity with other people for all the obvious reasons and of course the risks and signs Associated to it next up you got to have the right equipment so now I'm really focusing on if you're swimming in the open water in the maybe in a pool you got to have the right equipment and that could be a wetsuit a buoy of course you're swimming in a group they also have a thermal suit available which is like a thicker wetsuit they have different thicknesses of the polyurethane anywhere from one millimeter to five millimeters you can also get gloves and boots that are designed for cold water you can also get a thermal swim cap it actually covers you a little bit differently and it's designed to retain heat now if you don't have one of those or you don't want to get one you can just wear two silicone swim caps so that's the idea is to retain the heat on your body and put another barrier between your head and the cold which is the water and the air next up you want to control your breathing this is probably the most important thing when you first get in you're going to have this urge to gasp for air and it's all mental at this point you just need to control your breathing you build adaptation of that but you just need to get yourself under control really fix that breathing and then if you're swimming you got to get dry and get out as fast as possible so take off the wetsuit I'm assuming the air is going to be pretty cold if the water is really cold even if you're doing a cold plunge and you're getting out you want to dry yourself off you don't want to be in that environment outside or inside and you're still wet it's going to make it more difficult to bring back heat back and then you want to make sure that you drink a warm fluid so your body is actually going to be dehydrated because it was working to maintain this homeostasis if you're swimming you're doing work you're burning calories and so you're going to be sweating even if you don't feel like it in the water so it's important not to drink any caffeine bundle up as much as you can let me know in the comments what you guys have done whether it's ice swimming Polar Plunge cold plunge or swimming 5K in the freezing water if you enjoyed this video You're gonna love this video over here where I share what happens to your body when you swim I'll see you over there and happy swimming [Music]

Channel: Fares Ksebati

Views: 7,629

Keywords: swimming technique, freestyle technique, swimming tutorial, how to swim freestyle, swim tips, swimming videos, swim faster, how to swim, swim coach, swim workout, myswimpro, swimming tips, freestyle swimming technique, airofit, swimming training, triathlon training, freestyle breathing, cold water swimming, cold water immersion, cold water, cold therapy, winter swimming, open water swimming, triathlon swim, cold plunge, ice bath, cryotherapy, cold tub, hypothermia

Id: V-N2DrvxFfk

Length: 11min 13sec (673 seconds)

Published: Wed May 17 2023