[Swimming] full-immersion swimming breathing method

I. Answer question from beginner Kelly

 

Kelly asked: I have always thought it would take as long as possible to draw water during swimming, but someone recently told me that to speed up, you must dance your arm like a windmill. When I try this way, everything becomes so tense and I cannot breathe. In fact, even when I try to relax, I don't have any panic, but my heartbeats are still accelerating. When I leave the pool, I immediately return to the best state of my life-whether it's running or dancing, but as soon as I get in the water, I feel helpless. What should I do?

A:

 

Dear Kelly:

 

Let's start with a swimming spell: "Never practice struggle ". Your discomfort in the water does not mean that you have a problem-more than 0.1 billion adult Americans feel the same way as you do if they actually swim. However, anyone of them, especially you, can take the time to relax and take control of the breathing in the water to learn how to be free in the water ..

 

Since the opening of our swimming studio, I have been in our "endless pool" more regularly (in fact, it is a very small pool, but there is an outlet at one end to control the water flow rate, in this way, we can exercise various actions as we move forward in the water flow. It is called an endless pool because the pool will never be reached .) This allows me to observe students at an unprecedented close distance. This kind of closeness shows me what I have never really experienced: breathing difficulties are the biggest problem for every unskilled swimmer.

 

These experiences have convinced me that, unless breathing in the water has become a habit, it is impossible to effectively focus on other skills. Your urgency, heartbeat, and interest are all related to breathing, but it is irrelevant to drowning. The advice of the windmill just makes it worse. Therefore, let's let go of your consideration and focus on the basic functions of breathing. When you are able to control your breathing well, it is very easy to draw water.

 

For beginners, the first nervous source is very afraid that water will enter the nose or into the respiratory tract. This is especially evident when I teach beginners how to do balancing exercises. Because the smallest margin of head is very important for balancing, but it also makes the water "dangerous" close to the nose and mouth. When they breathe in the body, they are worried that not the air, but the water. As a result, they suddenly raise their heads so that their noses and mouths can leave the water "safe enough. But by doing so, they will lose stability and balance, making them more uncomfortable.

In the following simple steps, you can safely obtain the desired air and minimize the possibility of water absorption.

 

1. As coach Ti showed, you can use a large bowl of warm water to practice breathing (at home ). If there is a mirror, put it at the bottom of the bowl. Next, perform the following exercises:

• Place your chin in the water. When you breathe, breathe out with your nose and mouth, and breathe in with your mouth. Observe the effect of your breathing on the horizontal plane. Each time it lasts for 30 seconds or longer until it feels very natural (1 ).

• Next, gently tap your nose and lips into the water and try to breathe in through a small space at the corner of your mouth. In the mirror, pay attention to the effect of refreshing water formed by the contact between your nose and mouth. I tried this exercise with curiosity for about 1 minute until you felt bored.

 

• Open your eyes, immerse your face in the water, open your mouth, but do not vomit. You will be surprised to notice that the natural pressure stops water from entering your mouth or nostrils (2 ). Then lift your face out of the water and pay attention to how easy it is to breathe in, even if the water is still dripping down your mouth and nose. In this and next exercises, try to keep your nose tip in touch with the water while you are sucking in.

• Continue to immerse your face in the water, but this time it starts to spit bubbles gently from your nose. Take a closer look in the mirror and try to keep bubbles small and orderly. The smaller the bubble, the more soft the bubble, you can stick to the breath for a longer period of time until you look up and inhale. Next, I repeat this exercise, but this time I spit bubbles.

 

• When you can finish the exercises calmly and calmly, go to the following "breathing at a pace" section. Lower your face into the water, spit bubbles out, count to 4 or 5; inhale in your head, count to 1, then put your face into the water, and repeat it. Next, it's an interesting challenge. Let's change your breath, spit bubbles with your mouth, and then spit bubbles with your nose. Repeat this exercise until you have reached the relaxation and no pause pace.

 

2. When you are in the swimming pool, do the exercises above in the shenshui area. Relax your hands on the body side or grab the pool side, immerse your face in the water for continuous bubbles, and then breathe up. Repeat until this breathing exercise becomes effortless and comfortable. This relaxed breathing effect makes you feel comfortable and controllable when you swim again.

 

3. After a few minutes of the above exercises, go to the following bubble exercises. At first, you can immerse your face in the water with a lighter face. Then, you can gradually immerse your face in the water, and focus on the continuous and stable bubble. When the mouth goes out of the water, it is necessary to breathe out and then breathe out. At this time, it is necessary to make the breathing process very comfortable, and then do not pause, immediately return to the water and start to vomit bubbles.

 

4. When entering the swimming exercise, start to exercise at a 25-meter interval. In these 25-meter exercises, your need for air completely determines the speed and pace of Water stroke. If this is indeed helpful, we will give breath and breath counts (the ratio of breath to air should be 4-1 or 5-1) Just as we did during bowl exercises ). Take a few deep breaths at a 25-meter interval (for example, a yoga-style abdominal breath ). When you can repeat a 25-meter exercise and just take three deep breaths at the interval to restore enough relaxation and continue with the next 25-meter exercise, you can enter the 50-meter exercise.

2. Breathing from the inside out

 

This is the second part of the "Breathing control in Water" three steps. In Part 1, we are concerned about ensuring that your breathing channels are smooth. when you try to get the air, make sure that no water will enter your mouth and nose. In this section, we will describe the best way to trade in air. In Part 3, we will involve the breathing mechanism in freestyle.

 

Breathing is a natural action, so we seldom pay attention to it. The only thing we can be aware of is that we are not breathing out of breath due to violent activity, or when we breathe out of fear. While swimming, the two sometimes come at the same time.

 

Compared to breathing in other activities, swimming involves about the largest amount of breathing skills. The best swimming talents can breathe without any effort in a world-class competition to maintain a perfect swimming posture. Players who have been swimming in open waters for many years can do this either in the waves or when the waves blow to their faces or when a group of people are crowded together. Another extreme situation is that when a beginner's face or head is just immersed in water, they will feel very uncomfortable. In this case, getting the air is such a huge challenge, as a result, their minds are occupied, and they can no longer focus on maintaining their posture.

 

Breathing is undoubtedly the most basic skill in all swimming skills. If you can learn to breathe in the water just as automatically as on land, it will help you stay calm and focus on other basic skills. It also improves your oxygen acquisition capability to help you with long-distance swimming and ensures you have plenty of energy at full speed. In the end, those who master "Water Breathing control" can efficiently use their breathing skills to relax. In other swimming skill exercises, they can increase their concentration and enhance their self-consciousness, and can fully and completely restore physical fitness after any level of intensity exercises.

"Bad" air goes out, "good" air comes in

 

For the vast majority of people, the instinctive way of breathing is to focus on breathing, while the breath is not enough. In swimming, this process is exactly the opposite-in other sports, this is also the case when there is enough violent activity to breathe (for example, breathing after a short sprint ).

 

Each time we breathe in one breath, 21% of the gas that flows into our lungs is oxygen, and there is almost no carbon dioxide. In our outgoing breath, 14% Is oxygen, and about 6% is carbon dioxide. What does this mean? When we feel "breathless", it does not mean we lack oxygen, because we only consume 1/3 of the oxygen in our body; in fact, this breathless feeling is caused by the increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the blood. Therefore, to maintain relaxation and comfort, we should focus on our breath, because it will better clear the accumulated carbon dioxide. Through a series of exercises (we call it internal and external breathing), you can greatly improve your ability to feel the difference between focused breath and focused breath. And you just need to sit comfortably in front of the computer and see the following section to do it:

 

1. Start: actively breathe in and breath out, instead of consciously pressing it out. You can use your nose to perform this exercise. Repeat 5 to 6 times.

 

2. Exchange focus: actively extract the pressure (CALL. You can improve your perception of this change through a breathing exercise called pranavam in yoga. When you breathe, squeeze your throat and make it sound like an animal warning. The sound is loud enough to be heard by people who walk through the room. When you do this, you will feel the air through your throat more clearly than the air through the nostrils. Repeat 8 to 10 times.

 

3. Finally, continue to emphasize breath breathing, but consciously make every breath as passive as possible. How much of your lungs can be filled up depends on how much "vacuum" you create when breathing, Before transitioning to a more conscious inhalation. Repeat until you feel that this passive inflation capability has improved.

A dedicated exercise for breathing concentration

 

Next time you go swimming, I suggest you focus your attention on breathing, especially on breathing, and use it as a way to regulate and control your physical strength. Repeat the following series of exercises based on this idea. Each exercise lasts for about 10 minutes. You can choose any distance from 25 meters to 200 for the exercises. During the repetition interval in each exercise, three to six deep and slow breathing tasks are performed. You can rest for 1 to 2 minutes between the exercise and the exercise, and breathe every 2 to 3 minutes from start to end.

 

• The first round of exercises is moderately physical, about 65%. Maintain consistent physical distribution in this exercise, or increase the speed slightly every few minutes. Place your attention on a regular breath, and immediately start to breathe after each inhalation is completed. In the continuous process of this exercise, consciously make the inhalation more passive.

 

• 75% of physical strength is used in the second round of exercises. Increase the amount of physical energy consumed by increasing the volume of breath. Your goal is to gradually feel that more powerful breath, rather than greater muscle strength, provides all the energy required to increase the speed.

 

• The third round of exercises is faster and uses about 85% of physical strength. In this exercise, increase the breath strength as needed, but pay more attention to the end of the breath-when your mouth is just flushed with boiling water, the breath strength is increased by about 20%. You need to feel that you blow your mouth to breathe more easily. Continue to maintain the feeling of passive inhalation. Of course, the faster you breathe in, the more air you can swallow, but can you completely turn the obtained air into a product of clearing the lungs?

 

I suggest you repeat the above exercises or change them at least once a week for at least a few months. In subsequent repetition, you can add the following elements for testing:

 

1. During the first round of exercise, your one-way number is assumed to be n. In the second round, the number of rows is controlled at n + 1, and in the last round, the number of rows is controlled at N + 2 or N + 3.

 

2. In the test, breath through the nose and breath through the mouth. The goal is to use only the nose to breath in the first round, and to add the mouth to breath in subsequent exercises.

 

3. Do not View tables in the first few exercises. When you feel that you can increase the speed by increasing the breath, you can increase the speed by increasing the number of strokes more smoothly. To this extent, let's look at the table to estimate the effect of improving the speed by strengthening the breath or increasing the number of strokes.

3. How to obtain the oxygen required for muscle movement and maintain the swimming Efficiency

 

In cycling and running, breathing rules are simple: you need to breathe. Oxygen is always there and can be used at any time. However, this does not work during swimming. For beginners and cross students who are deeply frustrated, getting oxygen for muscle movement is a simple technique and the threshold is high. If you cannot get the air, you will never know how good you can swim. How many times have you been exhausted? This is probably not a problem with your health. The most likely thing is that your breathing prevents you from achieving good results in the test and keeps hitting you while you are swimming.

 

Poor breathing technology and balance are the first two major obstacles for inskillful swimmers. When your face or head stays in the water, everything goes well, but sooner or later the body needs to get some air, and then you begin to struggle, instead of sailing like you just did. When your breathing is correct, it will naturally be integrated into the water stroke process, and in fact, it can also increase the power of your water because of the body (hip rotation) is the source of power, and when you breathe, it usually turns more. The key to this action is to breathe as the body rotates, rather than turning the head independently. The following exercise will explain the reason: When you sit comfortably and read this article, you will not move, turn your head 90 degrees, point your chin to your shoulder, and then turn to the other side. I was satisfied with the scope of my neck movements, but such a head twist still caused obvious tension in my neck and upper back. Next, let's try the movements of many beginners: Increase the movements of bending the neck to the head based on the previous movements. What are the results? More tension and discomfort. This error is repeated thousands of times every hour in the water, which is enough to distort anyone's swimming posture.

 

Therefore, what should we do if we cannot breathe in the way we just described? It's easy. Instead of turning your head, you can turn your body to drive your head together to the position where you can breathe. At this time, the head and spine, chin, and chest are still well-maintained lines to ensure that the body is still well-formed. If you can do this, you can enjoy it more easily, comfortably, and efficiently immediately. The following five skills will help you breathe quickly and easily.

1. Keep the head and spine in a straight line

 

Before you start breathing with the body, you need to master the easy and stable body changing skills-which is also helpful for maintaining the body line straight and long. From now on, be sure to keep your head posture when you are not swimming. When swimming, the time between breathing, the nose should be facing the bottom of the pool. Imagine that there is a laser above your head that emits along your spine line, and the light shines directly at the other end of the pool. At any time during freestyle, keep this laser always on the other end of the pool, especially when the body is breathing. This means that when you breathe, the top of the head is always straight forward in the water like the head of the ship.

 

2. Rotate like a circular wood

 

Now you can keep your head straight. Next, try standing up and doing this exercise: standing upright, looking ahead, and keeping your head and spine in a straight line (continue to imagine a laser beam ), raise your right hand up. When the secondary muscle is in touch with your ears, the entire body turns to the left 90 degrees (keep your chin and chest online), just like the "Turn left" when a soldier is training ". You have rehearsed the correct action for freestyle breathing. The purpose of this exercise is to keep your head and spine in a straight line when you turn a long, slide, and balanced body line. The rotation angle should ensure that your mouth is easy to suck into the air. Because the navel is a good reference object in the body, in fact, if you can imagine that you are breathing in sync with the navel rather than synchronizing your mouth, I promise you have done the right thing.

 

3. Keep "high" during rotation ".

 

During the past few months, the mistaken breathing behavior will generate some bad habits in essence, thus undermining the effective water farming technology. Turning your head or looking up may cause stress, causing the stretched arm to sink and fall backward. When you breathe in, your arm is powerless. This will damage the efficiency: 1) This powerless action does not generate a driving force, and this arm stroke is wasted every time you breathe; 2) at this time, the arm position produces greater resistance than the stretch. The correction method is similar to the above exercise: Keep your arm stretched before turning your body. Every time you breathe, your arm should stretch forward, and it is also important that your hand should rush down to form a certain angle with the arm to help you "maintain" the position in the water. When you breathe in and stretch your arm very well, you should not check whether your hand is relaxed by hanging on a hanging ring in the water. Only when your head is in the water can you draw water again.

Pay attention to the hand position

4. Breathe in a rhythm.

The rhythm of your stroke is the rhythm of your body's rotation. Because the body is rotated to breathe, the pace of your breathing and water stroke should be integrated, with no difference. One of the most common mistakes for beginners is to try to take a longer breath on one side. The correct method is to rotate to breathe when the air is available, and then immediately rotate to the other side according to the rhythm without any pause. When you want to swim faster, you can only achieve it by accelerating the transfer, and this will allow you to breathe more quickly.

 

Consistent breathing and turn rhythm

5. Emphasize breath

 

One of the most important tasks you can do is to take more time to breathe out and completely clear the exhaust gas in the lungs during each stroke cycle. The increase in carbon dioxide concentration produced when you suffocate your breath-not the reduction of oxygen, but the cause of your suffocation. Because the air and water pressure are different, you need to pay more attention to the breath in the water-about 80% of the breathing cycle, You Need To breath in the water. Therefore, once you have completed the inhalation, you should immediately start to breathe-do not have any even tiny pauses-Put more attention on the breath, especially when your mouth and nose exit the water, the last 20% breath.

Iv. Breathing on both sides

In fact, all swimmers like to breathe one breath, because it feels more natural. Trying to breathe on the other side is very laborious-who was trying to feel laborious in the water? However, the problem with one-side breathing is that it will make your stroke asymmetrical. In an hour's swimming, you need to rotate your body to breathe 1000 times or more, which means that your trunk muscles are more powerful on one side, while the other side is more powerful. The above exercises have been repeated for hundreds of hours, and you will soon become a fixed swimming posture with one side. The best correction method is to breathe on both sides. You can practice as follows.

It is the easiest way to breathe every three arms, but if you are used to breathing one side twice, this means that breathing is reduced by 1/3. It's not a problem when you relax, but once accelerated, it will make you breathless. Therefore, when I relax, I breathe every three times, but when I swim faster or longer, I add continuous breathing on one side-for example, adding two or three or even four times before switching to another side. When I participate in a high-intensity competition (or open water competition), I will breathe a distance on one side, and then go to the other side to breathe a distance (time ). For example, I can breathe 10 times (2 times) On the right side, and then breathe 10 times on the left side. This provides more oxygen for my muscle movements. Breathing 8 to 10 times on your "weak side" in a row provides you with an opportunity to concentrate on improving the above five skills. When you move from fitness swimming to competitive swimming, you will find that it is a very helpful skill to breathe comfortably on both sides in triathlon or open water competitions or even swimming pool competitions.