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Breathing after breaststroke turn
I have started competing in Masters meets and am having issues breathing after my breaststroke turns. How do I hold my breath long enough to perform a proper turn?
Here is what I know I am supposed to do after the push off: As I begin to slow down, my hands come apart from the streamlined position and do what is essentially an underwater butterfly stroke. I try to be explosive and concentrate on accelerating until my hands are at my thighs. I try to keep my head still and look directly toward the bottom of the pool to minimize turbulence. **After a brief pause, I "creep" my hands up my body, paying special attention to cause as little resistance as possible. I begin the recovery of the kick while my arms slip past my torso. As my hands pass my head and extend in front of me, I kick my legs, tilt my head forward, and powerfully pop up to the surface to begin my first stroke. And here is what I actually do (fast forwarding into the previous scenario a little bit**): My hands are by my thighs, and my lungs are absolutely scorching from oxygen debt. Every instinct is telling me to get to the surface and take a breath. So while keeping my hands by my hips, I do a whip kick to propel my face to the surface to take a big breath. I then lunge my hands forward with a simultaneous whip kick, and then begin the regular breaststroke. I raced in the 200 IM, 400 IM, and 200 breast and this particularly noticeable during the IM events when the butterfly leg puts me into oxygen debt. Also, my splits are fairly consistent, so it’s not like I am going out too fast. Any advice? |
Hi che
It might be worth doing some drills where you do two successive underwater pulls and then surface. Obviously not at race pace initially. Otherwise the only suggestion I can think of is to concentrate on relaxation and continuous exhaling while under water. It may be partly a problem of tension and hence anxiety. |
I don't think your problem is with turn technique, but with what you're doing going into your turn.
When I first started doing 50 breaststroke in competition, my plan was to swim as hard as I could during the first 25, and then to try to maintain that speed during the second 25. What would happen, instead, is that I'd break out of my streamline early after the turn because my body desperately wanted air, leaving me with more distance to swim, and then my stroke would become sloppier and sloppier during the second 25 as my muscles started to tire and my body instinctively altered my technique to try to shift the effort to other muscles. By the time I finished the 50, I'd feel like I never wanted to swim breaststroke again. Swimming 100 breaststroke seemed like an impossible dream! But then I began experimenting with not going all out during the first 25, and concentrating, instead, on technique and efficiency. I found that I could streamline for half the length of the (short course) pool after my turn, and I could pour on speed near the end and finish the 50 feeling like I had plenty left in my tank. I then began experimenting with how hard I could push things during the first 25 without shortening my streamline and causing my stroke technique to collapse during the second 25, and I eventually found a balance. I progressed to 100 breaststroke, and last year actually began training 200 brfeaststroke (though I haven't yet had an opportunity to do a 200 in competition). A similar problem exists when you are doing breaststroke as part of an I.M. I actually make a point, as I am approaching the end of the backstroke leg of an I.M., of consciously reducing my effort level and focusing, instead, on perfect, efficient technique, because I've found that any time I lose during the backstroke leg by doing this is more than made up for by my ability to maintain a longer streamline during the breaststroke leg. But, once again, this is something you need to experiment with and tune as part of your preparation for the competition. Hope this helps! Bob |
Great advice by both of you - thank you! It seems counter intuitive that backing off on intensity can make you swim faster (by being more efficient), but I think you are right. I was pleased with my 200 BR time of 2:50, but I think there is a lot of room for improvement. My technique coming out of the turns was a mess. Same with the BR leg of the 200 IM and 400 IM where I barely broke :50 seconds per 50.
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You guys are hitting the mark. Fly and die are the terms usually used for racing where a person goes as fast as they can for as long as they can, and they holds on for the end. These people usually collapse horribly at the end because they are using up their anaerobic systems at the beginning, forcing a switch to the aerobic system, and this switch is brutal in people who aren't trained for it.
It has been proven that fly and die is one of the WORST methods of racing in rowing (and we are talking world-class athletes who actually go slower during their first and second splits and then go slightly faster or equal in their third and fourth during a 2,000m row versus going very fast during the first and second, then much slower during the third and fourth), and I've found it through personal running experience it applies there as well. It isn't much of a leap for me to have found that is applies to swimming too. Pacing is a much, much better method, and requires simplying training at race pace - e.g. pacing intervals. This from Mike Caviston, a world-record holding rower: Quote:
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I actually make a point, as I am approaching the end of the backstroke leg of an I.M., of consciously reducing my effort level and focusing, instead, on perfect efficient technique.
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