Comments on: Free Air: How to Breathe Easier

By: Free Air: Toward a More “Patient” Hand « Swim Well and Live Well: The Blog of Total Immersion Founder Terry Laughlin

Wed, 19 May 2010 20:26:49 +0000

[...] Related blog on breathing skills: Free Air: How to Breathe Easier [...]

By: Terry Laughlin

Terry Laughlin — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 12:12:57 +0000

Darren
I can give you assurance on one point. It is extremely unlikely that your breathing difficulties are due to too-small lungs. Usually a sense of breathlessness does not relate to lack of lung capacity. Swimmers most often feel breathless because they are failing to exhale fully or dynamically enough to clear out CO2 from the lungs’ lower lobes. This, in turn, may be caused by caused by
1) A high stroke rate or turnover – leaving too little time to take a full breath, or
2) Poor balance, or a sinking sensation, which creates general tension.
3) A combination of (1) and (2). Call this survival stroking, the feeling that if you don’t keep moving your arms and legs you might sink.

I can suggest two approaches to fixing this
1) Improve your balance, sense of support, comfort, and sense of ease by practicing the drills in Lessons 1 and 2 of the Total Immersion Easy Freestyle DVD.
2) Improve your breathing mechanics, in both drills and whole stroke, with the Total Immersion O2 in H2O Breathing Skills DVD.

By: darren

darren — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 21:33:54 +0000

Since learning to swim last august I feel I have improved on a lot exept for the breathing,can a persons lungs
be too small to swim,I breath good at the start but as my heart rate goes up I cant get enough air,I dont think
I’m exhaling enough before taking a breath,after getting your books and dvds I have slowed down my kick
and stroke,I have worked on teaching my mind to realize my body does want to float but I cant get the breathing,could it be about relaxing,since I was little I have feared the water,HELP!!!

By: Richard

Richard — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:39:31 +0000

I have found that bilateral breathing is a must for me. It was surprising how short of a time it took to learn to breathe on the ‘wrong’ side. This allows me to breathe whenever I feel like it, I’m not stuck with every stroke or every other stroke.

I also have swum an ocean swim in which the wind was off shore and that side (my right) was likely to get me a mouth full of water. No problem; I breathed on the other side!

Also, bilateral breathing makes both stokes (left and right) the same.

By: Laurie Kelly

Laurie Kelly — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:43:37 +0000

All great points given here. The main issue I struggle with is asthma. With this condition, it’s not so much the taking in of air that’s difficult, but rather it’s the reduced ability to exhale CO2 completely. When you can’t fully exhale, there’s less room in the lungs for oxygen to come in on the inhale. So you can see the problem here (and it’s not just confined to swimming – as a triathlete, this is my biggest issue in running as well.) Another side effect is production of excessive mucus in the lungs and back of the throat, which can even block your airway at times. The inhaler helps, but its not long lasting…and artificially increases your heart rate as well. Any other TI swimmers out there who also face this asthma challenge?

By: Terry Laughlin

Terry Laughlin — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 20:35:36 +0000

Brad
You’ll probably get a better reply and suggestions if you post this query on the O2inH2O conference on the TI Discussion Forum.

By: Terry Laughlin

Terry Laughlin — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 20:30:33 +0000

I’d say it’s possible to over-breathe. The breath should be taken quick and sharp, kind of the way you breathe between phrases while singing.

By: Terry Laughlin

Terry Laughlin — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 20:29:12 +0000

Herb The head follows the shoulder going to breath, precedes it returning.

By: Terry Laughlin

Terry Laughlin — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 14:14:05 +0000

Quite right Adam. The distinction I’m making here is not one of action, but of attention and intention. For most people, the focus is on all the aspects of how to push water back. How you minimize resistance is secondary or ignored. What this idea suggests is to give primary focus – at least sometimes – to the drag-reducing potential of how you use your arms and legs, rather than exclusively to how they create propulsion.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 05:33:34 +0000

I’ve never really noticed this before, but after reading your article I’ve seen that I tend to hold my breath & only exhale once my mouth is clear of the water – I actually exhale quickly before taking another quick breath.

So now I’ve tried concentrating on trying to exhale under water but find that I’m wanting to inhale straight away – I’m almost starting to get hypoxic – I guess I’ll just have to persevere with this until my brain gets used to it as I’m sure it is a better way of breathing.