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Following the strong admonitions of Get Fit Slowly readers, I’ve been adhering more closely to the Body for Life aerobics plan. At first I was playing the maverick, simply doing an hour of moderate aerobic exercise three times per week. Enough of you extolled the virtues of intervals (and the dangers of veering from BFL) that I decided to listen. I’m glad I did.
The Body for Life method takes some getting used to. I usually work out at a more-or-less constant pace. With Body for Life, you cycle through four short periods of increasing intensity, and then cap it with a single minute of all-out effort.
“It’s like exercising three minutes per week,” I told a friend recently. That’s not really true, of course, but sometimes it feels like it. That one minute per session of 100% effort just kills me. The rest of it is fine, but that one minute is a huge psychological barrier.
And instead of just biking — my default aerobic activity — I’ve been trying to mix it up. I’ve used the elliptical machine once. I’ve been running on a treadmill (I can do 1.9 miles in twenty minutes). On Tuesday, I swam!
I haven’t tried to swim for fitness in about a decade. This time, it was a baffling experience. I don’t mean that I’ve forgotten how to swim, but I have forgotten how to breathe. I was able to swim up and down the pool, and was even able to vary my effort, but many times I’d come up gasping for breath midway through a length. It was scary. Somewhere along the way I’ve forgotten how to breathe while swimming.
How frequently am I supposed to take a breath? Every stroke? Every four strokes? Half the length of the pool? And when do I exhale? There doesn’t seem to be time to exhale and inhale all in the same motion. Yet if I exhale with my head down, I get a little water in my mouth. I suspect I’m making this too difficult. (Shocking, I know.)
I expressed my concerns to Katrina Ramser, a recent guest-poster at Get Rich Slowly. Ramser is a swimming instructor and runs a site called Squid Kid. She wrote up a helpful post about lap swimming fundamentals: learning how to breathe correctly. She shared this first-time lap swimming exercise:
Start it out slowly and with a kickboard. Body horizontal on the water, begin kicking with straight legs, holding the end of the board with two hands. With your head looking at the bottom, start to slowly blow bubbles. Let go your left hand go and pull straight down, bringing it all the way around and grab the kickboard once again. Now do this with the right, but when that right arm has finished pulling and is stretched behind you, roll your body to the right side and take a breath. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
I should have read that before I headed to the pool on Tuesday!
I only intend to swim once per week right now. I think it’s a great way to get some extra chest and shoulder exercise. For now I’m going to use it as “extra exercise”. I’ll do twenty minutes of Body for Life running and then finish by practicing my breathing in the pool. In a few weeks, I’ll try again to use the Body for Life method while swimming!
Mac
10 responses so far ↓
1 LM // Mar 27, 2008 at 7:30 am
My swim coach always encouraged breathing every three strokes, but I prefer breathing on just the left side of my body, so I breathe every four strokes. Only every two strokes if I’m really out of breath or preparing for a flip turn… When I’m breathing every four strokes, I wait until the latter half of the strokes to exhale through my nose.
Maybe it was the chlorine going to my head, I had some practices where I could have sworn I was sort of breathing underwater accidentally. I could feel my lungs doing something kind of cool, but I was probably delusional.
2 Katrina R. // Mar 27, 2008 at 8:07 am
Thanks for mentioning my site in your post! Lm makes a good point: the exercise can vary depending on comfort. Some people feel better doing 4 arms, as opposed to 2, and breathing. Myself … I like 3 arms, and then breathing, which has me taking breaths on different sides. It’s how your exhale (blowing bubbles) works most naturally with your inhale (taking a breath on the side).
3 Leslie // Mar 27, 2008 at 10:11 am
Katrina gives good advice. I too am a swim instructor and was a competitive swimmer for years. Like LM, I have a definate peference for breathing on one side vs. the other (in my case, the right side). It is more efficient if you can breath on both side and breath every three strokes but, as with most things in life, you need to do what works for you. Don’t worry so much about how often you have to breath or which side you are breathing on. I often start out a work out breathing every 4 strokes but then it goes down after a while to every two.
You could always swim breast stroke and then your head pops up every arm pull to take a breath :-). That is far less complicated…
4 Flaime // Mar 27, 2008 at 11:26 am
Breathing depends on how you like to do it…I know a lot of swimmers who prefer to breath on one side of their body…So on an even number of strokes. Every 4 is good for light effort, or heavy effort in your good shape. Every other is okay if you aren’t in good shape, or are trying to get the hang of it.
Exhaling should be done over a constant period through the nose. If you where nose plugs, you can blow out through your mouth.
Or, if you know how to do the correct flip turn, you can just do back stroke and alleaviate the whole question.;-)
5 AbileneBlues // Mar 27, 2008 at 1:09 pm
JD. Do what feels right for you. Somebody might tell you a certain number of strokes is the right breathing place. The only right place is that place that allows you to do the distance/rate/time goals you set for yourself.
In college, I spent a year swimming 3 days a week for 2 hours each. At the start, I concentrated on making my stroke as smooth and mechanical as possible until I had burned that groove in. I pictured myself as a swimming robot with a goal of every stroke being exactly the same as if it was programmed in. I didn’t even know at the time that I was using visualization. It can be a powerful tool.
Years later (and years out of shape), when I started swimming again, people asked me every time if I had been a swimmer. Once you get that groove, it will be easier to do it than to not do it.
6 Shanti @ Antishay // Mar 27, 2008 at 9:28 pm
I swim regularly now, I used to swim every day. Breathing will take time to get right, and it will always be changing as you get more and more experienced with breathing . I breathe every 4-8 strokes as needed, always on the same side.
As an answer to when to breathe out… I breathe out WHILE swimming and then come up as I’m out of air, hence the varied amount of strokes between breaths. When I’m swimming hard, I may breathe every left stroke… sometimes when warming up I breathe on each end of the pool only.
I studied opera at a conservatory and my instructor was the one who got me swimming. Swimming increases air capacity and breath/gasp control (which singers always need more of!) and breathing out while swimming increases diaphragm awareness and stability/control. I guess I could say I’ve done a lot of swimming
7 sabrina // Mar 28, 2008 at 3:04 am
Water in your mouth? Are you exhaling through your mouth? I’ve always exhaled through my nose. Get someone at the pool to show you how they do it. I used to teach people to breathe by having them stand near the side of the pool, bending over, hanging onto the gutter to put their face in the water, and just practicing the exhale-under, twist-inhale move. Similar to the kickboard advice above, but you don’t have to worry about kicking at first.
I agree with pretty much everyone who’s posted. There’s no real “right” interval for breathing, it’s all dependent on your personal preference and intensity. I will note, though, I always felt that my left shoulder was stronger than my right because of years of breathing on the right. I don’t honestly know if it would matter all that much (there’s not a whole lot of effort involved in breathing, and I also do things like carry bookbags on that shoulder as well — probably also if you are not spending 14 hours a week in a pool this matters less for you
but still, if I were starting out again I’d probably put more emphasis on breathing on alternating sides.
8 Maria - Never the Same River Twice // Mar 28, 2008 at 6:12 am
On breathing - I know a couple of very good competitive master’s swimmers and I’ve asked them the same question.
Basically they said it doesn’t matter. Some people breathe on every stroke, some every 2 strokes, etc. I personally try to do every 3 because it evens out the load on my arms and shoulders, but if I’m going really hard I need to breathe more than that, so every stroke works.
9 Joshua // Mar 28, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I swim three times a week for health and just today decided that I had to try something different with my breathing, then read your article.
I have a nasal/allergy/phobia problem about getting water in my nose, so when I swim, my face never goes underwater. As you can imagine it is not ideal, but I haven’t been able to break myself of the habit.
I have been breathing every stroke, but that was winding me way too quickly. I tried every 2 strokes today and am more satisfied by my results. I’ll try varying until I find what works for me.
10 Cynthia // Apr 1, 2008 at 3:44 pm
I learned to breathe on my right side… nowadays, I will alternate sides, but if I had to do it all over again, I’d have started doing the alternating sooner.
Other than that observation, do what works for you. The important part is mixing up your exercise and getting that exercise!
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