Why You're Out Of Breath After 100m Swimming | How To Master Freestyle Swim Breathing

now when we're talking about swimming technique and i'm meaning specifically freestyle hair one of the most commonly reported problems is with breathing how many of you are out of breath after simply 100 meters or perhaps less or maybe even you're fine initially and then you just find it building up with time until you find yourself really struggling well trust me here you're certainly not alone and today i'm going to be explaining why it's happening and how to fix it [Music] now if you are someone that struggles with feeling out of breath while swimming well you needn't be ashamed as i mentioned already you are definitely not alone this is partly due to our natural built-in instinct to want to breathe constantly however swimming makes us break this habit and breathe differently which brings us on to my first point and probably the most common cause of this breathlessness well our response to not being able to breathe as and when we like is to take a big long fall of air while swimming holding on to it and then just as we're about to take our next breakfast trying to exhale that hair as quickly as we possibly can now imagine trying to do that whilst we're cycling along or running along in fact just try doing that while sat down doing absolutely nothing it's weird and it's incredibly unpleasant now the issue here is that your body uses the oxygen you've inhaled and creates carbon dioxide co2 as a waste product as co2 builds up within you your body senses it and tells your brain that you need to breathe so getting rid of the co2 helps to relieve this breathlessness so swimmers who don't exhale properly will quickly feel out of breath because of this reflex even though they probably aren't really suffering from oxygen death another knock-on effect of holding your breath is that it creates tension in your upper body and limits your range of motion quite often leading to a short and snappy style of stroke and then to add to that by holding your breath having more air in your lungs it can create and increase your buoyancy in your chest and you think of that seesaw effect that we quite often talk about by having more buoyancy in your chest your chest lifts up your legs drop down you could end up with your legs dragging along the bottom of the pool so we need to break this instinct to hold our breath so rather than taking a huge lung full of air try taking a normal breath as you would when cycling or running and as soon as your face goes back down into the water start exhaling gently and continuously ideally through your nose before then turning to take another breath the perfect timing is to fully exhale just as you're turning your head to take the next breath this takes time and practice and personally i gently exhale throughout with a little burst at the end to get rid of anything left [Music] well this leads me nicely on to our next problem and that is how often we breathe by now you've likely heard of bilateral breathing simply meaning breathing to either side and the idea of this is to create some balance and symmetry to our stroke unfortunately though this creates more issues particularly for those that are already struggling with breathing and feeling breathlessness while swimming because suddenly you're asking yourself to breathe every three strokes or perhaps if you're being really ambitious every five strokes i'm gonna be totally honest here i rarely breathe every three strokes in fact i normally breathe every two strokes as do many top elite swimmers and triathletes now to be clear i fully condone bilateral breathing but i just worry it is misunderstood slightly at times now as i mentioned already bilateral breathing is the ability to breathe to either side but it is not limited to simply breathing every three or every five continuously you could breathe every two to one side for half a length then breathe every three switch to the other side and breathe every two to the other side for the other half of the length that is still technically bilateral breathing it's simply having that ability to switch from one to the other confidently and happily and as you are trying to nail your breathing pattern and technique why not make life easier for yourself breathe every two get comfortable with that just make sure you practice breathing to each side so you really do work on that balance and that symmetry and with time as you get more comfortable why not build up to breathing every three and trying that out it's kind of funny really that many of the things that we do to try and get more breath in are actually the causes of us feeling breathless another one of those is the movement of our head as we try to get more breath in our tendency is to move our head right around so that we're looking up at the ceiling of the pool or to the sky or maybe really lifting our head up out of the water obviously this is just excessive movement it's a waste of energy and it's inefficient and if we are really lifting our head up out of the water it can make our legs drop down so we're dragging them along the bottom of the pool again a waste of energy so it's best avoided [Music] and finally if you are really struggling with your breathing in the water then you can work on some simple breathing exercises this mostly just works on building up your confidence of exhaling underwater for this you want to take a normal breath curl yourself up into a ball so that you float on the surface currently you're floating because your lungs are full of air but now start trickling your breath out through your mouth or nose gradually you'll start to feel yourself sinking keep trickling until you fully exhale and touch the floor of the pool push back up and then try again well personally i love that last exercise and still do it to this day i think it's great fun but hey maybe i just need to get out more well i hope you have enjoyed today's video if so please do give it a like don't forget to get involved in the comment section 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Channel: Global Triathlon Network

Views: 142,263

Rating: 4.9689665 out of 5

Keywords: out of breath, out of breath swimming, swim breathing, swim breathing technique, breathing technique, breathing, front crawl, how to swim, how to swim freestyle, swimming, swimming technique, front crawl technique, freestyle technique, GTN, Global Triathlon Network, triathlon, Triathlon (Sport), tri, ironman, Sports, swimbikerun, triathlon training, triathlon skills, iron man, tri bike, triathlete, cycling, running, training, skills, coaching, 4218, Ꮵ, Ꮽ, Ᏸ, Մ, Շ, Ꮲ, ꔣ, ཙ, ፕ17

Id: HWedSHeVdRw

Length: 5min 48sec (348 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 21 2021