I received an email from an enthused graduate of a TI Workshop, which read in part "By kicking from the abductor, combined with streamlining, I was able to kick the whole length of the pool underwater with only slight discomfort from not breathing. I did about 50 lengths of lung busters and I must say I have a new comfortable way to do a lung buster."

I asked what he meant by a lung buster and he said repeated 25s without breathing.  I used to do a bit of that, as well as longer repeats with limited breathing, sometimes as infrequently as a breath every 9 freestyle strokes. I no longer do either – partly because my breath-holding capacity is pretty much nil at 58, but more because I now believe it’s far more advantageous to practice, than to avoid, breathing.

Now and again in pool practice, I find myself swimming nearly a full length, without breathing — usually the first lap of my practice. Rather than trying to hold my breath it happens more because I’m just enjoying being back in the water, enjoying weightlessness and flow, and doing some focused "tuning" of my stroke. Next thing I know I’m nearly at the other wall and haven’t taken a breath yet. Because I’m so relaxed I haven’t needed a breath.

But that’s different than the "lung busters" I did years ago. Then it was my goal to not breathe. Now it’s something that happens – nearly unconsciously — while I focus on relaxing.

Why did I do lung busters back then? Partly because I believed — incorrectly as it happens — that breath holding could increase lung capacity. I’ve since learned that the only physiological result of breath-holding is an increase in CO2 levels, not lung capacity. And there’s no desirable training effect from that.

And partly because I still associated swimming well with "increasing my pain threshold." But my goals now are different — to increase the distance and speed I can swim without discomfort.

At that time I also believed breathing necessarily hurt stroke efficiency, because – at the time – that was the case. Since then I’ve devoted myself to making my breath-taking as seamless and efficient as possible. That being the case I want to practice breathing as frequently as possible, rather than avoid breathing. Since doing so I’ve learned it’s possible for my stroke to be improved — rather than interrupted — by the act of breath-taking.

And the benefit of that is obvious. Hard-working muscles work better, and "complain" less, when they get all the oxygen they need.

 

I often work on breathing skills by practicing drills such as "nodding" in Lesson Six of Easy Freestyle DVD, or the "Seamless Sighting" exercise in the Outside the Box DVD.