|
Breathing
Learning to
Inhale...by
Terry Laughlin
The rules of breathing are simple in sports like cycling and
running. You need a breath, you take one. You need more? You take more. Oxygen
is there for the asking. A regular no-brainer. Then there’s swimming, where for
some the simple act of getting oxygen to the muscles is a technique. And the
stakes are high. You never know how fast or well you really could swim if the
air isn’t there. If you’re exhausted after just a few laps, it might not be your
conditioning at all. It might be your breathing. Sloppy breathing drags down
inexperienced swimmers more than any other part of the stroke.
Most likely, your stroke is OK as long as your face is
in the water. But sooner or later you turn to get some air and - bam! - you’re
plowing instead of gliding through the water and squandering energy 40 to 60
times a minute, or about 10 times every 25 yards. No wonder you’re exhausted and
your stroke is a mess.
Part of the problem is instinct: Since you can’t breathe
in water, you fight to keep your head above it. Another factor is bad coaching:
If you’ve been told to turn your head as little as possible without rotating
your torso, all you get is a sore neck. Try it and see. As you sit reading this,
turn your head 90 degrees from center, pointing your chin first at one shoulder,
then at the other. You probably feel some tension and resistance in your neck
and upper back. Now try that same head-twisting action while lifting your chin -
a head position typical among many swimmers. Feel the tension and discomfort
increase? Now imagine doing that 1,000 times an hour.
So
give your neck and back a rest and improve your stroke at the same time. Breathe
with your whole body. Use your body roll to take your mouth to the air while
keeping your head aligned with your spine and your chin aligned with your
sternum. You’ll start swimming more easily and efficiently immediately. Here are
four steps to better breathing.
1. Hide your head
Ignore the age-old swimming rule that says you
should look forward and keep the water at your hairline. It’s an unnatural
position that causes tension along the length of your spine. Instead, hold your
head in its most natural position - in line with your spine. You know you’re
doing it right if it feels as if the water is about to flow over the back of
your head when you’re not breathing. Keep your head in line with your spine as
you roll to breathe.
2.
Roll play
Now that you’ve got your
head on straight, try this exercise: Stand up and look straight ahead, with your
head aligned with your spine (imagine a steel rod extending up the length of
your spine and out the top of your head). With your right arm held straight
overhead, your bicep pressed to your ear, turn your body 90 degrees toward your
left side, keeping your chin and sternum also aligned - as if doing a military
left-face. You have just rehearsed the ideal movement for freestyle breathing.
The goal is to keep your head and body aligned as you roll perfectly balanced.
You should roll enough so you don’t have to turn or lift your head to find air.
Imagine breathing through your navel, not your mouth, and you’ll be guaranteed
to do it right.
3. Find your rhythm
Since you breathe by rolling your body, your
breathing and stroke rhythms should be indistinguishable. A common stroke error
is trying to prolong the breath by staying on your side longer. Learn to breathe
by rolling to where the air is and immediately rolling back the other way
without changing rhythm. When you want to stroke faster, do it by speeding up
your body-rolling rhythm, so you also breathe faster.
4. Emphasize the exhale
Inhaling is nearly automatic But you
spend much more time in each stroke cycle exhaling, and completely clearing
stale air from the lungs is as important as getting fresh air in. If you try to
hold some air in your chest for buoyancy, you’ll only feel oxygen-deprived.
(Extra buoyancy doesn’t do you any good if your muscles are passing out from
hypoxia.) The presence of carbon dioxide in your lungs, not the absence of
oxygen, is what makes you feel that way. Because of the pressure differential
between air and water, you need to exhale more emphatically into water than you
do into air, so blow out strong and steady as soon as your face is in the
water.
Bilateral bonus points
Virtually all swimmers favor one side in
breathing, and they breathe to that side all the time because it feels more
natural. Over time, however, breathing to only one side makes your stroke
lopsided and asymmetrical. In an hour of swimming, you probably turn to your
breathing side about 1,000 times, meaning all your torso muscles pull more in
that direction and less to the other side. Multiply that by hundreds of hours of
swimming and you’re soon making a lopsided stroke permanent. The best correction
is bilateral breathing, which you can do several ways.
Breathing every third arm stroke is the simplest way,
but that also means you breathe one-third less often than when you’re breathing
every cycle on one side. That can leave you winded when you swim hard. So try
breathing to your right side one length and to your left the next. That way you
still get to breathe on every cycle. Your objective should be to breathe as
often to one side as you do to the other.
The key to bilateral breathing is learning to balance
just as well when breathing to your less natural side, and the key to that is
learning side-lying balance. If you don’t feel comfortable breathing on one
side, it’s because you don’t balance well when rolling to the other, so work on
the opposite-side balance to make it easier. Bilateral breathing is also useful
in a triathlon or open-water swims.
Hypoxic hype
Hypoxic training, or intentional breath-holding, has
been in vogue among coaches for about 25 years. It’s supposed to acclimate
swimmers, both mentally and physically, to the discomfort of swimming without
breathing, thereby simulating the effect of training at high altitudes. Swimmers
are often told to breathe only every five, seven, or nine strokes while swimming
briskly. But when researchers studied the effects of hypoxic training they
discovered that it only raises carbon dioxide levels in the blood, which has no
training value.
However there may be some technique benefits from
breathing less frequently. Having less air forces you to slow down and swim more
economically since energy metabolism is limited by the availability of oxygen.
When you supply less, you must slow down the rate of energy metabolism, so
breathing every five or seven strokes forces you to find subtle ways to use less
energy while swimming. And that can be very helpful. But keep that body rolling
between breaths!
|
