admin June 25th, 2007
This morning I swam next to a lady that I swim with at Masters. She has a beautiful long stroke and glides through the water .. and her kick is so fast. On my warm up she was keeping up with me just while kicking.. how depressing! But .. back to the point.. her head is very high in the water, so I tried it today, feels okay, but thought you were suppose to keep your head down?
Any opinions .. head up (water line maybe at eyebrows), or head down (water line on top of head)?
THere is a difference between “looking” and “lifting”
Your neck is made up of 7 bones and yoru skull sits on top. Yoru skull with brain in side weighs about 10 lbs. If this 10 lbs is LIFTED out of the water by extending EACH JOINT in the cervical spine (neck), then that 10 lbs of water displacement is lost and something has to sink…typicall since your lungs are the fulcrum, it will be your hips.
Looking forward while swimming, however, can be done by extending ONLY the atlas-occipital joint, or the joint between your skull and your first cervical vertebra. Looking at the attached pic below, you can see that if the extension comes only from this joint, the center of mass of your skull/brain will not change very much and should not affect body position much.
However LIFTING your head, even if it’s not all the way out of the water, is going to change the center of mass significantly resulting in something else sinking.
For people with poor swimming balance who do not know what it feels like to swim balanced, keeping your head looking down and pressed down is probably the best way to figure this out. Once you know what this is supposed to feel like, however, extending your skull at the first joint should have minimal impact in yoru balance…but if you have a bad neck, it will hurt like the dickens after awhile. For that reason, I look down while I swim, only looking forward to keep from hitting the wall.
admin January 17th, 2007
This is a response to a forum post over on Beginner Triathlete about so-called “Hypoxic Breathing” swim drills.
People have died doing these drills. There is no physiologic benefit from doing them. The name is a misnomer. If you want to swim uninterupted without worrying about breathing, use a snorkel. I believe the benefit that renee is trying to describe comes from not having your form break down when you roll (or don’t roll, or lift your head, or claw your way to the surface) to take a breath.
A far, far better solution is to have someone work with you to learn how to breath properly. The number of strokes you take per breath is irrelevant. There is no right number. You need what you need. The body’s need for oxygen consumption and getting rid of carbon dioxide is dependent upon how much energy you are using and in what form you are using it (aerobic/anaerbic, etc). When I start my swim warmup, I will frequently swim 7 to 9 strokes without breathing only because I am swimming smoothly, I have not gotten my oxygen consumption up by working hard, I am not generating a lot of waste products due to the low effort. When I have the urge to breath, I breath. When I am doing long endurance sprints, I may breath every 2 strokes. When I am rested and doing a single 25 yard sprint, yes, I can do it with no breaths. But not because I am forcing myself to do it. It is because 15-20 seconds of maximum effort requires little oxygen.
A novice swimmmer who uses all the energy they have just to stay on the surface of the water will need to breath every stroke because of the amount of energy they are using.
Do not play with basic needs of your body.
There is a mantra in Emergency Medical Services:
Air goes in and out,
Blood goes round and round
Pink is good and blue is bad.
That’s really all any EMT, Paramedic or Emergency Medicine nurse or physician needs to know. If it’s good enough for these professionals, it’s good enough for the recreational swimmer.
Air goes in and out.
Don’t forget it.
Practice it daily. Frequently. You’ll get really good at it.
