Cant get the hang of breathing

dvdfan

Hi

Im taking swimming lessons, well had my 1st last week and i just cant get the hang of the breathing technique. I can swim between 1/2-3/4 of the length of the pool without taking a breath but when i try and breathe i have big problems. The 1st breath seems fine, but the 2nd and 3rd breathes just dont seem to get much air or i fell like my chest has alot of pressure on it or something and have to surface, of course this tension leads to losing focus and swimming bad for the last 1/4 and slowing alot.

Ive tried breathing every 2 strokes, 4 strokes etc but i still struggle for the 2nd and mostly the 3rd one. Ive tried practising just floating on the water and slowly letting out my breathe and then surfacing for air and it goes ok although i still get the heavy chest feeling after a good few breathes and the need to get a proper breather, i also find thats what happens with my 2nd and 3rd stroke that i try and get my head up further out of the water to get a bigger breathe but my legs obviously sink and my stride is broken.

What was your eureka moment or is it just a matter of practise, ive had 1 lesson and ive been in the pool for an hour for the last 5 days and im still not much better?

Seres

everyone that starts out swimming has this problem , you just got to keep practising and it will come .
it will come in stages , in a week or so you will complete your first lenght , then you will do two with a rest in between , then three with a rest , then one day you will go two lenghts without stopping , then three , the next thing you will do ten without a rest and your off.
you need to give it time and it will happen
good luck

DolphinMasters

It's tough at the start but it does get easier.

The main thing is to stick with it and try to breathe regularly - say every 3 strokes to maintain a good body/head position - rather than holding your breath for half the pool as you will only end up gasping for air and any breath you take after that will never feel like you are taking enough air in.

Also get used to the habit of blowing out the air into the water so that when you do come to take a breath that you have enough lung capacity to take in more air.

Anyway good luck with it, it's worth it when it does work!:)

Clseeper

This is the final hurdle for a lot of people in mastering the frontcrawl so well done for getting to this stage on your first lesson.

You seem to have a good awareness in the water, the fact that you can tell when your legs drop when you try to lift your head more. From your post, it seems that your problem is more in your fitness. The fact that the first breath is always good, and subsequent breaths are harder, points to this. If this is the case and your stroke and kick are good throughout then yes it is just practice.

Don’t try and come out of the water more on your breathing, try to rotate more as this give your mouth more clearance form the water without disrupting your body position.

Good Luck and don’t give up.

dvdfan

Thanks for the comments, this was a relief as i thought this was something that i should get quickly. Im overweight so i could be to do with my fitness level but saying that ive lost 2 stone over the last couple of months and i generally go the gym/play ball for an hour 3 times a week so my fitness level is average i would say.

Ive been practising more and im trying to breathe every 4 strokes and ive found this helps as i have a routine where before i might go 10 strokes at the start before needing to take a breathe but found sometimes i missed the timing and had to wait 2 more strokes to get another chance which isnt obviously good. Still if i try and do every 2 strokes i think it effects my speed and i dont get many more breathes than i would if i done every 4 strokes.

I feel when im swimmingim not thinking properly about my breathing and im also unsure how much breathe i should be releasing out underwater but just find after breathe 2 or 3 it feels like my breathes are getting shorter and shorter and this is the time i tend to instinctively get the head out of the water which as you mentioned its better to get a better rotation than lifting my head. Im sure it will get better with practise and hopefully if im doing somehting wrong hell spot it my next lesson as i was pretty bad in the 1st lesson so he probably was just letting me practise and might focus more on my technique now that ive improved. Probably the reason that i thought i just wasnt getting it was that most of the class can already do the breathing but they have other flaws with their arms etc and 1 of them wasnt even breathing out underwater only taking a breathe so i was thinking if they can last the lap without exhaling under water i must be terrible.

Anyway thanks for the comments and hopefully i can improve over the coming weeks

padraig_f

one big advance I made was learning to exhale fully underwater. I was a bit apprehensive when I first started and I was subconciously holding some air in, in case I got into any difficulty. this meant when I came up for air, I needed to exhale a bit before inhaling. which in the short time you have, meant I wasn't getting enough air in.

the realisation of what I was doing wrong came about a bit accidentally. one day I went, the regular 2.4m pool wasn't available and I had to use the 1m pool. being confident I wasn't going to drown in this pool, I allowed myself to exhale fully underwater and found my breathing much improved. after that, I used the technique in the regular pool.

also, have you tried breathing every 3 strokes? (one on either side)
I read somewhere that if you're always breathing on one side it can cause a slight imbalance in your muscles, as you're always rotating to the same side (although I thought I saw some Olympic swimmers doing it). breathing on both sides isn't that hard to get the hang of.

Hrududu

I was the same when I had trouble with my breathing. I would hold my breath as long as I could then would end up spluttering. I time it now to breathe every 4 strokes. So I swim 4 strokes all the while exhaling slowly. I think thats the key. If you exhale too fast you start to panic a bit because you havent finished your strokes and are worried that you wont have enough air.

Once it all clicks though its a great feeling. And it will just become natural.

Redjeep!

Similar experience here in that I found it hard to breathe when I first started swimming again recently.

After I read that you're meant to exhale underwater, I concentrated on blowing out just as I was moving my head to the side to breathe. This seemed to get me into a rhythm and my confidence grew until I realised that I wasn't going to drown or get a mouthful of water and then just kind off started breathing out constantly while my face is underwater. I found myself doing it automatically tonight without any real concern. Just need to improve everything else now !

Have patience and work on it and it'll come. Everybody finds it hard for a while.

biko

You could try using a kickboard/floatboard to relax your hands on while concentrating on kicking and breathing.

Sergio

I started swimming with the masters again recently and ive an improvement in my technique already due to consciusly trying to breath properly and maintain good position in the water.
Ive started to do the drills which have helped me alot.

why dont you go to your local club and join up?

jph100

sorry to hijack your thread OP but ive problems with my breathing too.

i got lessons last year but then didnt get round to swimming again until recently and my breathing had become rubbish again. ill enrol in more lessons when the term starts.

until then id appreciate any help here. basically, i seem to exhale ok underwater but my technique when inhaling isnt good. i always tend to swallow water. plus my instructor used always mention something wrong i was doing with my right shoulder(when breathing on right hand side). might these problems be linked and is there anythin i can try to do until i get start back in the lessons?

thanks

bosscat

on breathing , aim to make as little movement as possible , all you want to turn is your head , not your shoulder or torso.

jph100

bosscat wrote: »

on breathing , aim to make as little movement as possible , all you want to turn is your head , not your shoulder or torso.

so just move ur head?

and shud u start moving it when ur right hand is underneath ur right shoulder on its way back through the water?

thanks

Rainy Day

Have you tried doing a google on it? There's loads of videos on YouTube and articles all over the web.

The idea is to roll your whole body while turning your head to side. Something to think of would be trying to get your belly button to face the wall at the side of the pool you are breathing to. You breathe while your arm is recovering.

Have a read of the article below.

http://www.totalimmersion.net/2005articles/february/breathing.html