Breathing in the Water

Important Note to the Viewer

LESSONS: 12 VIDEOS

Breathing in the Water Intro

This course is going to discuss the details of breathing. And so we'll be adding lessons to this as we go along. But the idea is that we've worked with a lot of people that really have a hard time understanding the process of breathing in the water that is, so we're going to go through some different exercises that we use in our teaching, and in our training, to help people understand how to overcome some anxiety that comes with breathing in the water, and mostly for how to breathe out in the water. So we hope you enjoy this course. It's a growing course as we continue to put things together and share ideas. And if you have anything specific that you'd like to hear about, then we'd appreciate if you send us a note, and we will actually try to create the video specifically for you. So we hope you enjoy this and let's get started.

Humming in the Water

So the first thing we want to talk about is making sure that we have the nose protected as much as possible. Because one of the biggest problems and the issues with breathing is that water going up the nose is uncomfortable for everybody. Doesn't matter how good of a swimmer you are, you're doing everything you can to make sure that water doesn't go up your nose, to the point that now we're seeing Olympic athletes win Olympic championships with nose clips on during your backstroke races. So some people can equalize that pressure and not have to worry about that other people can teach skills that will help with that. And sometimes the Olympians just say you know what I've got enough to think about, I'm going to go ahead and put on these $2 piece of metal over my nose to make sure that I don't have to worry about it. So the first thing that that I like to do when I'm working on how to make sure that water doesn't go up my nose. And sometimes I do this during turns. Or if I want a more tactile or visceral feeling while I'm swimming is I will actually make noise and so this is called humming. And there really is no way that you can put your face in the water making noise and not have air come out. So it's determining where air comes out. And so just simply by humming, closing your mouth and humming, you will force air out of your nose. So first I'll do it at the surface and then I'll go a little bit deeper. So I'm gonna put on my goggles. So I don't get water in my eyes. And I'm just going to take the mouth underwater, the mouth and the nose underwater just slightly, and I will just start humming and you'll see what happens. Now I'm going to go all the way underwater so you can see it a little bit more closely. And that is the simple act of humming to make sure that arrows coming out of your nose.

Singing in the Water

In order to exhale completely, you sometimes need the mouth involved because it's going to allow air to escape more quickly. So rather than just humming through the nose or humming to force air out of the nose, this is what I like to call singing. And so it's basically just opening your mouth. So it's, it's just opening your mouth and allowing air to come out. And so you'll make kind of a humming sound, but with your mouth open, so underwater, it will sound different, but above water, this is all you're doing. And so as I do that, here in the water, you're going to see that air is now going to escape out of my mouth rather than my nose. does get a little bit of water in your mouth. I mean, when we're vertical water will get trapped in your mouth horizontal to the water, or laying down actually, there's not a lot of water that goes in your mouth. Let's go into the water and take a look at it again from what it looks like when more air escapes because the mouth is a bigger opening than the nose. And that is singing. So having air come out of the mouth, not out of the nose but surely out of the mouth.

Experiment with Body Density

Because everybody, body, everybody, everybody's body is made differently. As far as the physiological makeup, muscle density, the amount of fat that you have just kind of how your body is put together, you're going to be either a sink or a floater, or something in between. And so understanding kind of where you are in that starts to get you along the path towards how soon should you exhale when you swim, how important is it to have the full oxygen in or the full lungs filled with oxygen in your body to help you balance. Some people have an incredibly difficult time balancing. And it could simply be because their body density is such that they're just going to sink as soon as they let the air out. So understanding how this works is something that is a kind of awakening for people. For other people, it's a little scary to just simply exhale all of your air. But if you're if you want to try it and kind of see where you stand in the water, or where you think in the water, then this is an interesting experiment for you to try. So basically, what I'm gonna do is I'm going to get into a tight ball. And then I'm going to start to exhale all of my air through my nose. So it's going to slowly exhale through the nose. As more air escapes, I will probably start to sink, I hope I start to sing. And so I start to understand how much air I need to keep in my lungs to allow me to start practicing balanced drills. And to have something to press on. That would then bring the hips up. If I let too much air out and I'm sinking, then if you sink and press at the same time, you're in big trouble, you're gonna go really far down. So depending on how fast you sink in this exercise may help you determine how much air you should retain while you're swimming before you focus on the exhale when you go to breathe. So here we go. I'm going to get into a ball and I'm going to sink. So first, take a nice deep breath of air. So experiment with body density, how much oxygen can you sink? Are you sinking immediately that the air comes out? Can you float at all in the ball position when you have lungs filled with air? So these are just different things that you can try

Constant Exhale?

Once we've determined somebody's body density, one of the experiments we'd like to try and here is to work on the constant exhale, and to work on a constant exhale, experimenting between the constant exhale through the nose, or the constant exhale through the mouth. And what feels most comfortable to the individual? And one of the experiments is how long can you go exhaling through the nose, how long can you go exhaling through the mouth, before you run out of air. And so in here, it's a very controlled experiment, because it's a very safe environment. And it's simply the number of strokes that you take based on a certain water speed. And then when you run out, you simply stand up. So The goal is to help someone discover kind of the ratio of how much time they spend exhaling when they're focusing on the nose, and then how much time there spend exhaling through the mouth, which one can happen faster, which one will naturally happen faster. And you may be surprised, it's not as simple as you think. Because people will react differently as they exhale through the nose and through the mouth. So I'm going to set the water speed at a fairly easy speed. And I will just constantly there'll be constant exhale, either through my nose, it'll be through my nose first, and then through my mouth second. And what we'll do is count the number of strokes that I take in each one of them, I'll do my best to keep the same effort as far as the exhale is concerned. And we'll just see how long each one of them lasts. Not positive about the actual account, I think it was 21 through the nose and 12 through the mouth. So we'll check it, but it's about half. For me. It's almost half as many strokes when I breathe out of the mouth. So that tells me that if I want to get rid of a lot of air, and again, I know this makes sense. But it's different when people get in the water. It's not always what you think is so I know that if I want to get rid of a lot of air that aren't going to exhale through my mouth because it's just going to allow me to get rid of more air more quickly. If I want to have a slight trickle, then I'm going to use my nose. And so you'll see that as I go through this exercise, I'd use both my nose and my mouth, one to control a constant exhale, and to make sure that all the air is out by the time I turn my head for the breath. And so sometimes it gets a little bit more complicated, but the things we learn, when we kind of analyze what we do, you discover things. So give it a try.

Start with the Nose End with the Mouth

What I'll do next is I like to make sure that I have some exhale going on with the nose, because that keeps the nose clear of any water going up. So I'm going to do half and a half, I will do a certain number of strokes breathing out through my nose, and then just before I turn my head to breathe, I will purge or burst all the air out through my mouth. And so this is because I use a constant exhale for most of the time that I swim. Not everybody based on body density, not everybody is going to exhale, or very constantly. Some people need to hold on to their air. But it's important to understand the process for you as an individual, not just say, okay, somebody said, I'm going to constantly exhale. So I should do that. Somebody else said I'm going to constantly hold my air until the last or I'm going to hold my air until the last possible second, it's no one answer is right for everybody. So you have to do is you have to figure out which one is going to work the best for you. And you have to experiment. And think about making sure that the most important thing is that you get all your air out before you turn your head to have the air come in, you get the co2 out before you turn your head to get all the good air in. So right now I'm going to experiment with a few strokes breathing out through my nose. And then I will purge more through my mouth as I rotate to get my breath. So I'm trying to also make it audible. So that to remind me, the difference between the nose and the mouth. And most of the time I'm not making noise when I do this. But for this exercise, I'm trying to really focus on making sure that there's a difference between the nose and the mouth as far as where the IRS coming out. But it's, it's again, you're thinking all the time. When I went to seven, I don't usually go to seven, it's usually three or four. And so it was a little awkward for me. So if it looks a little weird, it's because it was the next video hopefully will be more consistent.

When to Exhale

So if you do a combination of nose and mouth, then the idea is to figure out, when do you start to make that switch. And the switch is when do you start to go from exhaling through the nose, and then exhale through the mouth to make sure that you get all the co2 out before you turn your head. So for me, it's about two. So if I'm breathing every fourth, it's about every two strokes, that it's to through the nose and to through the mouth in order to get all the air out in time so that I can have a quick breath. So it splits it up pretty evenly. And it makes it pretty easy for me to remember. When I'm thinking about it, usually it's instinctual at this point after a long time in the water. So having to think about this and discover what it is that I do took a lot of time because I had to watch myself in the mirror and not think about it all at the same time. Because once I started thinking about it, I started to control it. And if you control it, you're not doing what you do when you naturally do it. So it's something that if you think about it, maybe you can start to build better habits. I don't know. We'll see. Here we go. Let me try to through the nose, two strokes, nose, two strokes mouth, and make sure I can get all my air out. This is gonna be breathing every fourth. So this will be to the same side every time.

Turning to Air on Freestyle

So if you follow us on social media, you may have seen some of our great triathletes doing some breathing exercises. And so the breathing exercises are to make sure that the rotation of the head is in line. And the breathing exercise is basically standing here facing the motor facing the front of the pool. And all you do is you get them to stand at attention. And then what they have to do is either look at the house or look at the wall. Look at the house, look at the wall. And so that is basically all you're doing when you breathe, is to rotate your head within that line. Now, there might be a slight lift of the chin in order to stand more at attention. But the reality is you want to keep that motion as simple as possible. And so what a lot of people do is they'll lift their head, or they'll lean or tilt or talk or they do all these things that get this off this access. And so it's adding a lot of stress and strain to that rotation. As well as making it more difficult to breathe. We have plenty of pictures of athletes when they're breathing, their mouth is tilted to the bottom of the head. So the top of their head is very high, the bottom of their mat, their head, or their mouth is very close to the surface of the water because they've tilted up. So unless you're a whale and you have a blowhole up there, the most important thing to get close or high in the surface, or above the surface is your mouth. So rotating your head is going to be far more effective than lifting or tilting. So be very careful. So here we'll try to demonstrate good breathing and just rotational breathing, rather than any kind of lift. So remember, look at the house. Look at the wall. That's all we're trying to do. And hopefully, I did that right. It felt good, was just a rotation, pretty much locked in with the body. The head is disconnected from the body as you're swimming. But then when you go to breathe, to lock it in and just have a go with the body. It's just very effective and very efficient.

Free Back Combo Drill

If you have a hard time, keeping the head connected as you rotate from the head down position to the breathing position, then one great exercise to try is combination or combo free backstroke, because it is simply a rotation, an extra degree of rotation that will help you to not worry so much about breathing low and in the trough and keeping one goggle in and all that stuff, which we're going to talk about in a lesson coming up. But right now, what I'm gonna do is I'm going to take four strokes of freestyle, and three strokes of backstroke. And I'm going to demonstrate this for a little bit. And then we will talk about the process of the rotation. But I'm just going to go through this now the idea here is that, as I rotate over, the head stays in line, because I'm not worried about staying low on the side, which is where a lot of people push up and lift their head. So we'll go and demo the four, three, and three back. And we'll do that a few times. And so hopefully, the head will just rotate very easily, in a straight and direct line, from front to back, and back to front, or from down to up and up to down. You may have noticed on that one, that as I rotated from the down to the up position, that my head was very low, very close to the surface of the water, even having the water come over my face a little bit. That's a key point in this. And that keeps the head in line and we'll discuss it further in the next lesson. But the idea here is that it's simply a rotation within a 360-degree cylinder, and you're trying to stay as low as possible as you go to that breath. So we hope that that was a fun one for you. And we will explain in further detail the transition from down to up and the transition from up to down

Free Back Combo - Roll from Down to Up

So in thinking of the combo drill from freestyle, backstroke, and backstroke to freestyle, it, there's a role that occurs. And we have to make sure that we understand the process of that role. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to start by focusing on the position of going from freestyle to backstroke. And so I'm going to slow this down, it'll go, I'll have pauses in it, so you can see what happens. But as the stroke comes back for freestyle, I'm simply going to roll this shoulder over and look up to the sky. So it's a, it's a slow progression. But it's just like breathing only farther. And so I'm going to end up completely on my back this time. And what you're going to notice is that when I end up on my back, I'm initially going to practice this by having my face underwater. So I'm gonna plan on blowing bubbles out of my nose when I rollover. Because the problem with going from front to back for most people is that they pop up too high. If you pop up too high, you're going to be out of balance, you have to struggle for a couple of strokes. And it's not as pleasant of an experience. The other thing is that we really want to work on making sure that we're sneaking up to air that we're rolling overstaying as low as possible. And, and you know, really keeping that line going forward. So again, the secret or the trick is that as you roll from down to up, the head will still be very low to the surface of the water. In fact, in my case, I'm going to over-exaggerate a couple of times, and make sure that the water is completely over my face. And then a couple times I will go back and then lift up ever so slightly to make sure that I'm going directly to air. But when I do this exercise, I can tell you that I don't open my mouth immediately, because my goal here is to breathe as low as possible and to make sure my body line is stable. So even when I'm doing regular, I may not go immediately to air. So something to look at. This time, I'm going to take the paws out and we'll make it flow a little bit more and as it flows a little bit more, the head should go pretty quickly directly to air rather than having the head down position. So we'll try this a couple times just with a little bit more consistency and flow. So from down to up, making sure that the rotation is low, that the head position is low and you're rolling with the head in the same line. Not popping it up.

Free Back Combo - Roll from Up to Down

Going from up to down, there's one extra step and that's the head turn. So when it's time for us to look back down, the first thing that happens is the head turns, then the arm comes around and the body falls back over for freestyle. So I'm gonna do this very slowly again, give it a couple of times from the front a couple of times from the side, and then it will have pauses in it initially. So first, we're going to do pauses and then the second time through, we'll take out the pauses and let it flow. Just give you a couple of different ideas of how to fluidly go from up to down and down to up. Hope that helps.

One Goggle In?

Next, we want to talk about the one goggle in theory. Now Sure, when you have great swimmers going really fast, they're going to be able to keep one goggle when, when learning balance and learning breathing techniques, it's important to understand you don't have to go with one goggle in its there's not some rule in the universe somewhere that says you can only breathe with one goggle in the water. And if you do anything other than that, that just it's not functional. It's not true at all. So what I'm going to do here is is what I would generally use in, say, choppier waters. Or, you know, if I just want to get a little bit extra rotation, I'm going to over-exaggerate this. But the important thing is that the rhythm of the stroke will not be impacted by the extended rotation of the head, or the additional rotation of the head, it's not like I'm going to go and spin my neck a little bit farther, I'm going to look like this. And it's going to all of a sudden throw everything off. So rhythm in this is going to be very important but also understanding that you can spin your head pretty quickly. Did you see it? So that's about how fast it takes or how long it takes to look to the side. So I'm gonna alternate, I'm either gonna be looking at the mirror on the bottom, or when I breathe, I'm gonna be looking at the mirror above me. And so that's how far I'm going to look, the head is going to be directly up. So again, the rhythm of the stroke will not change the rotation of the head, and possibly the rotation of the body will change a little bit. But all I'm doing is spinning my head a little bit farther. If I get my mouth higher up, I'm going to have a cleaner breath. So again, experiment and play around and don't get caught up into some rule you read somewhere that says I have to do everything like this, or else I'm not really swimming, make it up. Exhale completely, make sure that you can separate the head or the neck, from the shoulder, which you're already doing if you keep a stable head when you're looking down, and then get your air and get back down. So the less time you spend in the breathing position, the less chance you're gonna go out of balance in front, which is a whole nother lesson. So right now Don't worry about keeping one goggle in. If you rotate your head a little bit more and can get air and stay in line. That's more important than focusing on one goggle and good job.