Breathing question...

"Cipher" left this mess on Wed, 12 Mar 2003 22:20:26 -0600 for The Way to clean up:

Quoted message said:

I've just recently started breathing on both sides when I swim. Prior to this I was always
breathing on one side. I find oxygen deprivation a major problem when I breath on both sides. My
questions are:

1) Are you supposed to exhale completely? I think I may not be exhaling enough and that might be my
problem.
2) I breath on every third stroke and I seem to exhale in three spurts in rhythm with my strokes.
Is this wrong? Should I be exhaling steadily?
3) Inhaling? How much are you supposed to inhale? As much as you can stuff into your lungs?

1) Yes, absolutely. Any air left in your lungs when you go to take your next breath needs to be
expelled, which means your wasting time above the surface.

2) This is a sign that you are not relaxing fully as you swim, that you're breathing is stacatto
like this. It needs to be a full steady exhale, which will allow your brain to focus where it
should: on your stroke.

3) A normal breath should be more than sufficient to get you to your next breath. By normal, I mean
a breath you might take under exertion, not a resting breath. You don't (and shouldn't) force air
into your lungs. Let them do the work on their own. It will also help you when you exhale. A
technique many swimmers use is to exhale *more* than they inhale. (Eventually you will play catch
up on the inhale, if you swim long enough that session.)

Tao te Carl

Cipher said:

I've just recently started breathing on both sides when I swim. Prior to this I was always
breathing on one side. I find oxygen deprivation a major problem when I breath on both sides. My
questions are:

1) Are you supposed to exhale completely? I think I may not be exhaling enough and that might be
my problem.

There is completely, and there is completely. Yes, you should exhale completely, but don't dwell at
the bottom trying to get the last molecules out.

Quoted message said:

2) I breath on every third stroke and I seem to exhale in three spurts in rhythm with my strokes.
Is this wrong? Should I be exhaling steadily?

Yes, but not linearly. More like exponentially. ie the expulsion gathers force toward the end.

Quoted message said:

3) Inhaling? How much are you supposed to inhale? As much as you can stuff into your lungs?

It isn't a full breath in the "See how long you can hold your breath" sense.

Bilateral breathing can take quite a long time to get used to. Most people don't do it all the time.
I only do it in drills.

martin

--
Martin Smith email: [email hidden] Vollsveien 9 tel. : +47 6783 1188
P.O. Box 482 mob. : +47 932 48 303 1327 Lysaker, Norway

It was hard for me to make the transition to bi-lateral breathing but looking back well worth the
effort. For the first 2-3 months I had the sensation of drowning breathing to my weak side but now I
can't tell a difference between sides.

Cipher wrote in message ...

Quoted message said:

I've just recently started breathing on both sides when I swim. Prior to this I was always
breathing on one side. I find oxygen deprivation a major problem when I breath on both sides. My
questions are:

1) Are you supposed to exhale completely? I think I may not be exhaling enough and that might be my
problem.
2) I breath on every third stroke and I seem to exhale in three spurts in rhythm with my strokes.
Is this wrong? Should I be exhaling steadily?
3) Inhaling? How much are you supposed to inhale? As much as you can

stuff

Quoted message said:

into your lungs?

Thanks in advance

de Valois said:

"Cipher" left this mess on Wed, 12 Mar 2003 22:20:26 -0600 for The Way to clean up:

Quoted message said:

I've just recently started breathing on both sides when I swim. Prior to this I was always
breathing on one side. I find oxygen deprivation a major problem when I breath on both sides. My
questions are:

1) Are you supposed to exhale completely? I think I may not be exhaling enough and that might be
my problem.
2) I breath on every third stroke and I seem to exhale in three spurts in rhythm with my strokes.
Is this wrong? Should I be exhaling steadily?
3) Inhaling? How much are you supposed to inhale? As much as you can stuff into your lungs?

1) Yes, absolutely. Any air left in your lungs when you go to take your next breath needs to be
expelled, which means your wasting time above the surface.

There is always air in your lungs.

Quoted message said:

2) This is a sign that you are not relaxing fully as you swim, that you're breathing is stacatto
like this. It needs to be a full steady exhale, which will allow your brain to focus where it
should: on your stroke.

3) A normal breath should be more than sufficient to get you to your next breath. By normal, I
mean a breath you might take under exertion, not a resting breath. You don't (and shouldn't)
force air into your lungs. Let them do the work on their own. It will also help you when you
exhale. A technique many swimmers use is to exhale *more* than they inhale. (Eventually you
will play catch up on the inhale, if you swim long enough that session.)

Tao te Carl

--
Martin Smith email: [email hidden] Vollsveien 9 tel. : +47 6783 1188
P.O. Box 482 mob. : +47 932 48 303 1327 Lysaker, Norway

So I've got a ways to go...I guess I'll just keep drilling. I notice that I tend to go faster than
when I breathe on one side only.

Thanks to everyone for their advice.

"BillX" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

It was hard for me to make the transition to bi-lateral breathing but looking back well worth the
effort. For the first 2-3 months I had the sensation of drowning breathing to my weak side but now
I can't tell a difference between sides.

Cipher wrote in message ...

Quoted message said:

I've just recently started breathing on both sides when I swim. Prior to this I was always
breathing on one side. I find oxygen deprivation a

major

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

problem when I breath on both sides. My questions are:

1) Are you supposed to exhale completely? I think I may not be exhaling enough and that might be
my problem.
2) I breath on every third stroke and I seem to exhale in three spurts in rhythm with my strokes.
Is this wrong? Should I be exhaling steadily?
3) Inhaling? How much are you supposed to inhale? As much as you can

stuff

Quoted message said:

into your lungs?

Thanks in advance

"Martin left this mess on Thu, 13 Mar 2003 16:08:38 +0100 for The Way to clean up:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

1) Yes, absolutely. Any air left in your lungs when you go to take your next breath needs to be
expelled, which means your wasting time above the surface.

There is always air in your lungs.

Point taken. I was referring to the "feeling" of having emptied your lungs. Here in America, that
gets colloquialized to "emptying your lungs".

Tao te Carl