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Long time swimmer and runner here - the biggest difference between the two IMO is the focus on lung capacity for swimming. A common swimming training set most

• ahawkins 8y ago
  This guy swims.
  • czbond 8y ago
    I am guessing that is a Blind app reference?
    • deleted 8y ago
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    • olivermarks 8y ago
      I've run lots of trail marathons and halves and have pretty good aerobic function, but I've always had a big problem with breathing while swimming. Does anyone have any good links or thoughts on getting into a good breathing rhythm that doesn't involve running out of steam and ingesting water? My running breathing is very disciplined but it all seems to fall apart when I swim
      • stormbrew 8y ago
        Have you tried just using nose plugs/clips? There seems to be some variation in how well people can close off their nasal passage while underwater and often people who have more trouble with it sound exactly like this. Personally I have to be blowing air out my nose at a pretty unsustainable rate to prevent water from coming in, so if I'm doing serious swimming I use clips. Not exploring this option when I was a kid made me resent and hate swim classes even though I loved being in the water.
        • olivermarks 8y ago
          i'll try that, thanks!
          • Proof 8y ago
            Hi! You typically want to breath out through your noise, then inhale through the mouth when you go for air. Another tip that comes immediately to mind is try using a swimmer’s snorkel. At first, it’ll be really difficult to keep from water going into your nose but after a few practices, your nose and it’s canals will block out water as a reflex, enabling you to breath through your mouth the entire swim. Hope this helps and sorry for English!
    • SpikedCola 8y ago
      I think it's a Silicon Valley[0] reference [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uMEE7eaaUA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uMEE7eaaUA
      • czbond 8y ago
        Thanks for that ! I've always wondered what the genesis of it was....
• graphitezepp 8y ago
  I really breathed more often than every 4 when 500m was my best event, is breathing that often really the common consensus?
  • epmatsw 8y ago
    I think so. If you watch someone like Katie Ledecky, she breathes every 2 strokes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQU_VWBF1uw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQU_VWBF1uw
    • trashface 8y ago
      A kind of off topic question: in that video you can see that not only is Katie breathing every 2 strokes, but her stroke timing is "staggered" - 2 strokes, pause, 2 strokes, pause - like a heartbeat. I think Phelps does the same thing. Is this just a style thing or is it actually faster?
      • xyhopguy 8y ago
        I dont think this is settled -- I've seen world class swimmers do it both ways. Personally I find taking a long stroke after each breath more effective.
      • GreedCtrl 8y ago
        This is called galloping (might have other names too). In general, freestyle has two extremes: shoulder driven and hip-driven. Shoulder driven freestyle is faster but less efficient, and hip-driven is slower but more efficient. Galloping alternates between hip- and shoulder-driven strokes, which is why it seems uneven. This also allows the swimmer to take advantage of the motion of breathing to build more momentum. I don't know if it is truly faster or not though.
        • trashface 8y ago
          Thanks! They definitely didn't teach us to do it that way when I was a kid, but that was back in the dark ages. I'll have to try it to see if it works for me.
• raoulj 8y ago
  I swam competitively for 15 years, including 4 years of D1 swimming, but I come from a family of rowers. The effect of limited breathing in swimming forced the body to adapt. One Thanksgiving, my father (a former international-level rower), my brother (a currently international-level rower), and I found our way into a pack of balloons. We wanted to see who could inflate the largest balloon off of a single breath. Once we had breathed our hardest, got out the measuring tape, and argued about the best way to measure it at length, we found that I had won. My brother and my dad are both around 8 inches taller and 50 pounds more than myself — much bigger people. But they didn’t have to hold their breath for hours every day :) Obviously this is a poor man’s proxy to a VO2MAX assessment, which I’m sure they would win. But lung volume is certainly one of a swimmer’s greatest assets.
  • EForEndeavour 8y ago
    Also, my understanding is that the body position in rowing -- squat-like at the catch, with arms reaching far forward -- impacts breathing to the point that most (all?) rowers breathe twice per stroke at higher stroke rates, such as race pace. Your dad and brother might be optimized for faster, relatively shallower breaths.
    • beenBoutIT 8y ago
      I rowed crew in college and swam on a swim team as a kid, IMO the big difference is that in swimming strategically holding your breath allows you to swim faster. With rowing there are brief parts of the stroke when breathing is physically impossible(right at the catch, as you mentioned) and you have to inhale/exhale around that. Outside of that rowers aren't deliberately holding their breath while rowing, ever.
  • jacobjuul 8y ago
    Lung capacity can only be improved a little bit with training (we're talking 5-10% range) and it's a poor indicator of your fitness level. Either you have a genetically larger lung capacity than your brother and dad, or you are simply better at filling your lungs to their full capacity. VO2MAX has nothing to do with lung capacity (if you're healthy)
• deleted 8y ago
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• jorvi 8y ago
  > That said, running 400m sprints with small rest intervals is extremely hard on every part of the body and I found the muscle stress from running far greater than from swimming. This surprises me greatly. If you look at the body of a professional runner vs. a professional swimmer the swimmer is much, much more built.
  • guiomie 8y ago
    I think this applies for long distance runners, but sprinters are usually built.
  • nradov 8y ago
    Who are you looking at? Professional 400m runners tend to be quite muscular, although more in the legs whereas swimmers have stronger upper bodies. It's only the long distance runners who look scrawny.
    • dwighttk 8y ago
      jacked torsos are often more visually impressive than jacked legs
      • artwr 8y ago
        True, but don't neglect leg day :)
        • dwighttk 8y ago
          I'm on a t-rex workout plan :D
      • magic_beans 8y ago
        That's not true. Guys with chicken legs look plain silly.
        • dwighttk 8y ago
          They do, but average legs and extreme torso looks more impressive than average torso and extreme legs.
• sharkweek 8y ago
  This is super fascinating, thanks for sharing. I did an olympic triathlon a few years back, and while I consider myself a decent runner and a strong cyclist, the swimming absolutely kicked my ass to the point that I'm not sure I'll ever do another triathlon to avoid it. Seems to take another level of strength to be great at it.
  • alexfoo 8y ago
    Technique buys you so much more speed and/or efficiency in swimming compared to cycling or running. Those that lack good technique will thrash themselves into a tired mess in order to keep up with the others on the swim. Some swim coaching, and subsequent drills in your usual training, would soon get you on your way to enjoying the swim part of a triathlon and stop it being horrendous. The cheap and less effective method is simply watching/studying this video every time before you go to the pool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3HhNlysFDs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3HhNlysFDs and then watching it afterwards and thinking about your own stroke.
    • mykowebhn 8y ago
      One thing I noticed in the video you included: when the shot is following him from behind I noticed that Van Hazel's head is completely stationary, no lateral or up-down movement. Amazing!
      • irrational 8y ago
        Also notice how far his shoulders rotate. I see lots of people mainly moving their arms instead of rotating their entire torsos.
        • taurath 8y ago
          Thats been a big thing for me to learn - if you want to be able to breath without taking long pauses, your whole torso needs to move, and it creates a very natural motion to pop your head left or right to breathe a pocket of air
• oarabbus_ 8y ago
  >I really don't think running compares in terms of how stressful the sport is on the lungs. Sounds like words spoken by a person who's never run a competitive 800m race. Maybe if you said swimming just barely edges out running in lung stress... sorry, but this claim is simply comical.
  • rscho 8y ago
    Yeah... Except that if you run at your maximum capacity every day, you will get injured fast. In swimming, everyday training (actually twice daily) is extremely hard because the length to which you can go without injury is further. Same as for say, cycling.
    • oarabbus_ 8y ago
      Running is definitely harder on the joints. On the lungs? Give me a break.
• AngeloAnolin 8y ago
  Fascinating to know that swimmers (professional) employ breathing techniques, as well as being selective on which body part they choose to use during swimming events - given the ratio of how much oxygen is utilized when using a part of the body against not using it. Does the size of the diaphragm also takes into factor on this scenario? I guess it might be because that would be the muscle that helps compresses the lungs to be able to take in the most amount of air possible.
• darkpuma 8y ago
  > "in a 500+ race, there are big debates about whether to breathe every 2 or 3 strokes." It seems to me that debate is less about lung capacity and more about breathing on one side or two (e.g. bilateral breathing.) For me it's always seemed obvious that bilateral swimming should be the desired ideal. Most of my peers favored one side or the other, because in the beginning they had a very slight preference and over time as they used that side only, that preference was reinforced to the point where it became downright awkward to breath on the "wrong" side. If you train against this from the beginning, it seems to me that your times will improve (if only because every three strokes is less breathing, which of course is faster, all else being equal) and you won't have to worry about any physiological asymmetries.
  • fc373745 8y ago
    I disagree. breathing to one side usually every 2 strokes has been the ideal ever since 2008 200 free beijing. I switched then and now you're right in the sense that breathing to my strong side is awkward as hell, but I dont think i'll ever look back to every 3
    • darkpuma 8y ago
      I think switching once you're an established swimmer is going to be virtually impossible, at least if you want to be competitive. I think it's something that should be trained as early as possible. If any established Olympic swimmer tries to make the change, my guess is they won't be swimming at an Olympic level any longer, because breathing on a single side is a pretty good local maxima (only marginally worse than bilateral) but getting out of that local maxima would involve degrading your performance for however long it takes for bilateral swimming to feel just as natural, which might take years for all I know. I don't know if there are any top-tier swimmers who've ever made the switch and remained competitive, I've not looked into it that far, but I suspect there aren't. I also belief (with no scientific evidence) that training bilateral from the beginning is even more advantageous for mediocre to poor swimmers, since the symmetry in breathing will make their form in general more symmetric and consequently more efficient. Obviously bilateral breathing is not necessary to achieve excellent form, as demonstrated by the vast majority of Olympic swimmers, but I believe it should make it easier for the common swimmer.
• fc373745 8y ago
  I'm an advocate of breathing every 2 strokes. Watching phelps 200 free in beijing was the time I switched from 3 to 2, and i think many swimmers followed suit, even biedderman who still currently holds the world record. Sun Yang however mixes it up in the 800-1500, he'll do 2 for the majority of the swim, but there are times where he'll put in 3. I've been doing every 2/4 for so long that it feels awkward trying to breathe to my strong side. I feel that muscle memory is actually a key component in why swimmers who generally breathe every 2 are faster. It's kind of like that bruce lee quote where you practice 1 thing 1000x is a lot more effective than practicing 2 things 500x each
  • creaghpatr 8y ago
    My experience was that 2 stroke breathing was good if you can put power into the full motion (like Phelps and others) but in high school I was pretty lanky and found 3 to be more balanced and streamlined— 200 has always been the border between short and long distance too which makes it the most gray area imo
• curun1r 8y ago
  Sub-competitive freediver here, so I thought I’d comment a bit on how my sport stresses the lungs and how the body adapts to that stress. First a comment about the debates over how often you should breathe...almost certainly, those who advise breathing less often are right. People who haven’t trained in apnea and haven’t learned to tolerate high levels of CO2 in the blood always assume the urge to breathe has to do with not getting enough oxygen. But in those sessions where you were “audibly gasping for air,” you were mainly satisfying your urge to expel the CO2 that had built up in your body and, after 1-2 breaths, your oxygen levels were mostly back to a point where you could’ve started breathing normally again. Even after 5 minute breath holds, I try to only take 2-3 recovery breaths before I return to my normal breathing cadence. Breathing less often, since it sounds like breathing slows you down to some extent, should just be a matter of dealing with the discomfort of a higher build-up of CO2. If you were to specifically train for CO2 tolerance, that wouldn’t be that big of a deal. I’m actually somewhat surprised that apnea training hasn’t become an important part of training to be a competitive swimmer. Secondly, there have been a few studies that have looked at the physiological changes that happen to extreme breath hold athletes, so those may be of interest to swimmers because they may experience some of the same changes. One study showed increased basal metabolic rate and ability for the blood to hold oxygen. It seems like the training makes the body want to store more oxygen and use less of it to convert stored energy reserves. It wouldn’t surprise me if swimmers saw some degree of those changes as well. Lastly, one important difference between freediving and swimming is the effect on the heart. Freedivers are specifically focused on not putting stress on the heart. We try to relax and lower our heart rate to use oxygen as slowly as possible. Even in dynamic disciplines, the focus is on slow, relaxed strokes, even if that results in more time spent underwater. A freediver swimming 200m on a single breath (whether horizontally or vertically) will likely have fewer heartbeats during that swim than that 50m swimmer you described. But what’s interesting about that is that freedivers still experience some of the beneficial changes to the heart that swimmers and runners do. For instance, when I first took up the sport, my resting heart rate dropped to about the level mentioned in the article (below 60 bpm) and my blood pressure dropped to the point where my doctor was somewhat worried (90/56 at one point). I think there’s something to what you mentioned about putting pressure on the lungs. The heart and lungs are really one interconnected system and you can affect one by affecting the other.
• ignoramous 8y ago
  I have been following swimming on and off since 2004. I very vividly remember A Bernard (French) breathing heavily after a 100m relay split in 2008 Beijing (J Lezak produced an inhuman performance to take Gold for the US) and thinking... Those must be some really really really huge lungs: https://youtu.be/chwxaUtnfUk?t=7m45s https://youtu.be/chwxaUtnfUk?t=7m45s