Why when I go swimming do I get bad wind?? Yesterday I got to about 50 lengths all going okay then start getting really bad stomach pains, burping. Finished at 100 lengths come home with a bad stomach and really bad wind?? anyone know how I can comabt it??
Cheers

you must be swallowing air/water as you breathe…

could well be swallowing air
try concentrating on your breathing

ditto,

breathe into your lungs (sounds obvious) but theres no point of having your cheeks puffed out and full of air as well, it just gets forced down into your stomach. Concentrate on breathign in and keeping it down in your lungs by contracting your diaphragm/lifting your ribs, not pursing your lips and trying to keep it in your mouth.

what stroke are you using – I unable to do front crawl any more as I can't breath (asthma) so use breast stroke

get stroke improvement lessons if you're serious about swim training.

…and splash about a lot to hide the bubbles.

100 lengths of what size pool, 25 or 50m? Either way it sounds like you're fairly serious on the swimming front, probably should invest in a bit of stroke correction, this'll help your breathing as well and will hopefully make you more powerful and efficient through the water (through better stroke technique).

I used to do these sort of distances (100-150 laps of a 50m pool in a session) and after a while I built up severe tendonitis in my right shoulder, so bad that I had to give up swimming for a year so it could recover, this was from poor stroke technique… So, if you've not had proper training I'd definitely recommend it to avoid injury

i like the fact that the title is a visual representation of the thread's content. 🙂

It's of a 25m pool. About 6 years ago I used to swim 6 days a week before work but joined my current job so it's impossible. Just getting back into it as I want to start doing some triathlons but I find it a nice break from running. I was thinking about my technique yesterday but problem is I have no clue! I had never thought about my breathing .. mmm what am I doing them? Should I just be holding my breath them? Sorry but I have never really had any training and just get in the pool and do 100 lengths front crawl then get out!!!!

Any suggestions on training for speed or something to make it a bit different? Cheers

Yeah, I get the same. Swimming a lot at the moment and I put it down to 'gulping' air when the intensity is raised, doing intervals etc.

Unlike you though, I've always viewed this side effect as a positive bonus. Childish I know, but I can unleash some absolute monsters straight after swimming, which always puts a smile on my face! The wife however….

I get wind too, just started swimming again and I'm up to 50 lengths, I'm so bloody slow.

tri club, swim club or local authority shall be able to give you stroke improvement lessons.

Highly recommend something akin to our 'Swim Fit' classes for adults. It's half stroke technique, drills, and fitness. Ours covers all ability levels in different lanes and I've been going for about a month now. I'm really feeling the benefits already. Much more controled breathing on the crawl now and I'm not sprinting away from the start, unable to maintain breathing on the 3rd length, like I used to be.

To sort out technique, you want the total immersion book. It is genius. If you do what they say, you turn into a smooth, fish-like swimmer, you can go way faster for way less effort. It is a great way to piss off the macho-men who swim crawl at 2000 strokes a minute, you will overtake them easily at a nice comfortable stroke rate.

There is a triathlon version of the book too, I don't know how good that is though, it might be better if that's what you're targeting.

They also do weekend training camps, which from people I know who've gone are supposed to be very good, but are v.v. expensive.

The total immersion book also has a decent section on training. The key thing is don't just count the number of lengths – you'll just get good at plodding along for 100 lengths, but no faster. Most people training will do some kind of sets of repeated swimming at various intensities, with breaks in between. There are tons of websites with triathlon swim training example sets, which are worth reading. If you're having trouble with breathing / stroke, get the book and sort out your technique before you start doing any hard training though, or else you'll risk injury & make your current bad habits worse.

Joe

I have never really had any training and just get in the pool and do 100 lengths front crawl

Exactly the same as me then 😀 And that's what caused me problems in the end, the fact that no one had ever really taught me decent technique meant that I was putting too much strain on my shoulder joint (getting most of my power from there in fact, when you should be getting it from your back and lats).

Would highly recommend some coaching, it'll most likely solve your breathing/wind issue and will have the added benefit of making you a more efficient swimmer and hopefully reduce the risk of injury.

I'd 2nd, 3rd etc what's been said above; join a tri club or swimming club.

I'm a member of a tri club and swim 3-4 times a week, (ranging from 2.5k – 3.5k per session). The instruction is very much along the same lines as the total immersion technique; same principles etc, and one or two of our club coaches are/were total immersion instructors.

The Total immersion Tri book is also very good IMHO.

The biggest improvement the coaching gave me was to drill in bilateral breathing (although it took nearly a year before it became natural). I used to breathe only on one side and I'd finish a session and ache like hell on that side. Now I breathe every 3-5 strokes and it just feels so much easier.

Still fart like a trooper afterwards though!

I used to swim on my own and it's hard to do a decent set in a public session even if you're good at motivating yourself. I used to end up just covering a lot of distance at one speed which kept me fit but i never got any faster. But trying to do any sort of intervals when you're sharing a lane with 5 other people doing something different is impossible. Try and find a tri or masters club to join or find some swimfit sessions. Added bonus for me of a club is how cheap it is, i pay twenty quid a month for up to 5 coached sessions per week

Oh yeah, the other thing if you're planning on triathlons, is do some practice at proper swimming, outdoors rather than in the pool. It is worth getting used to swimming without the lane lines, having to look where you are going.

Open water swimming has the added benefit of being way more fun, and having scenery. And fun things like currents, tides, waves, wind and stuff like that, that make swimming so much more lively. It is also free, and you almost certainly live near a river / lake or the sea, where you can do it.

I like swimming breaststroke too – makes a nice change from crawl, and it is jolly useful outside when you're swimming in fast moving water / rapids, where you want to be able to choose to swim head up over the scary bits, or to see oncoming waves and dive through them.

Joe

Hi I have gone from not being able to do 2 lengths crawl this time last year to doing a mile quite easy. Do a search for Total immersion on youtube there is a demo by Shinji takejuchi, thats what i try to copy , so smooth and very little effort…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJpFVvho0o4&gt

I have tried to find some swimming clubs around my area but haven't been too successful and also doing shift work can sometimes be problematic. I used to live in Cardiff and loved going to the triathlon swimming sessions.
I have managed to teach myself to breathe every 3 strokes so I alternate sides and I've read a few things about keeping elbows high. Exactly as ebygomm says though it's hard when you are in a lane with other people trying to do "your" training but I've managed okay. There are some right plums though! I was in the "fast lane" yesterday (don't think I'm even fast but the people in the medium lane were the classically overweight head out of water breast strokers who don't even get to the point of heavy breathing) and some plum gets in in his wetsuit and "blenheim palace" triathlon hat and pounds up and down the MIDDLE of the lane doing some random front crawl attempt like he was a beginner getting in everyone's way! IF he appears at one of my sessions again he might get some strategic leg kicks as he encroaches on my side!!!

I tend to just do front crawl, the ocassional bit of back stroke when I need a change and sometimes focus on arms with a pull buoy between my legs. I think I'll definately have a look at that book that people have suggested. It's just so difficult when (a) I have no-one else to swim/train with (I often try to tag on the back of some super fit bloke every now and then) and (b) can't see what my technique is like and whethe I'm improving.

So how do I breathe to stop the parping then? David_r your comments made me laugh! I was laughing to myself in the showers at the pool last night as I let a few rippers out 😉

only thing i found made me a quicker swimmer, was everything appart from swimming!

Spinning class' twice a week for a few weeks must have added 10-15% onto my speed! Freeweights a similar number of times had a similar effect. Think its becasue its very hard to stress the body while swimming, so its hard to get a good hard/long cardio workout, or enough resistance to build muscle.

Swimming 6 times a week improved it, but found it much more effective to combine it with other things and just use the times as a gauge of fitness.

Just have a nice burp.

I was in a similar situation when working in London, I've always been a bit too erratic to make it to a regular swimming club. That was why I got into the whole total immersion thing. In my case, I sucked so bad that it was really obvious the difference it made. A bonus is that you don't need to go super fast for a lot of the drills, so you can happily do them in the slower lanes.

Lanes at swimming pools are a right old hassle. There is always some super slow man swimming in the fast lane (it is always a man who thinks they are fast). At some pools they have a toe-touch convention, that if you touch the toes of the person in front they should let you past at the turn, but that often isn't the case, and you just have to repeatedly overtake them (some more aggressive swimmers will 'accidentally' crash into people to make the point). It is worth either pointing out to lifeguards if someone is blatantly in the wrong lane, or just suggesting to them that they might want to try the medium lane. I know where I used to swim in London, the lifeguards kept an eye out and came down to talk to people who were too slow for the fast lane or too fast for the medium or slow lanes.

Joe

its' because you have overdone it – your stomach muscles (something you don't realise you work when swimming) have worked harder than they normally do…

apparently this can cause the stomach to swell and distend – someone will correct me here – but apparently the acid then leaks out of the top of the intestine and cause little ulcers – hence the pain…

if you get it every so often it is fine, but every time you swim it can be bad news.

swimming is something that can give you lots of fitness in a short space of time – but you can also risk overtraining quite easily. just be careful…

I often overdo it as I'm a water polo player so the adrenaline of the game gets me going and I end up with the stomach cramp problem…and yes…it can give you wind…

so there you go.

only thing i found made me a quicker swimmer, was everything appart from swimming!….Think its becasue its very hard to stress the body while swimming, so its hard to get a good hard/long cardio workout, or enough resistance to build muscle.

I think it's very hard to get a decent workout trying to do a session on your own in a public pool, much easier in a club situation. That's why I drive 20 miles each way to swim with a club (that and the fact that 'lane swimming' makes me homicidal!).

For me fitness doesn't translate well between sports/activities, the only thing that makes me a better swimmer is swimming.

blimey, the anti-total immersion nazi's are being a bit slow. Two recommendations and no-one calling it a load of rubbish? What is the world coming to?

I've only ever heard good stuff about total immersion. I've never looked at it but i know a couple of people who started at our club who taught or retaught themselves front crawl using it. Seemed a good starting point for them. Some sort of coaching is always going to improve on what someone has taught themselves simply because it's easy to feel like you're doing something a certain way when in reality that's not the case. A coach can correct this. Having said that talk of swimming downhill and breathing in troughs is like a foreign language to me.

Back to the original question, are you breathing out underwater? Trying to breathe out and in again whilst your mouth is out the water can lead to gulping to try and fit the breathing out and breathing in bit in. There's not time to do both, breathe out underwater and just inhale when you turn your head

Breathing out underwater is the trick.

A good drill is to do a length breating every 3, then a length every 5, then 7, then start again from 3. This forces you to slow down and concentrate on breathing and technique.

Spinning class' twice a week for a few weeks must have added 10-15% onto my speed! Freeweights a similar number of times had a similar effect. Think its becasue its very hard to stress the body while swimming, so its hard to get a good hard/long cardio workout, or enough resistance to build muscle.

Its hard in a public session because of people getting in the way but I think if you do the same sort of workout in the pool that you do in spinning, e.g. repeat sets of varying intensity and length, then you will get similar benefit. If you are doing this already, then mix it up more because you are used to it. Much better than plodding up and down.

you need to get someone to look at your swim stroke.
swimming 2500 each time, for sure you may have developed some habits that will need changing.
if you only breathe to one side, this can cause many troubles/problems

breathing is probably your main problem, gulping air in (like when drinking a coke to make oneself burp) rather than a controlled breathe may likely be a culprit. I would guess (but without seeing can't say) that you are probably breathing out, then in, at the turn of your head. Hence a quick gulp.

So I'm getting confused about this breathing thing? I thought you just turned your head to the side took a deep breath and held it until the next head turn .. release and breath again? Is this wrong?

I have just reserved that total immersion swimming book from the library so I shall have a read and see if that helps at all!

turn head and breath in, then head back down, and then breath out steady in the water until the next time you turn your head.

You should be inhaling when you turn your head, then exhale underwater before you turn your head to take the next breath.

Oops, double post

Basically it's like all the time you're underwater, you're breathing out slowly, so you only breathe in when you turn your head. I like to let the air bubble out a bit harder each time my arms do a stroke. If you constantly breathe out a bit, you don't get water in your mouth, so you don't need to worry about closing your mouth tightly or anything.

So it's like:
Left side – Mouth out and breathe in.
Right side – breathe out underwater.
Left side – breathe out underwater
Right side – Mouth out and breathe in

If you're rolling your whole body naturally as you swim, you shouldn't have to turn your head too far to get a breath in.

Same for breaststroke too – breathe out underwater, breathe in on top of the water.

Joe

okay so maybe I'm not doing it controlled enough and I'm gulping in as I turn my head hence the wind thing!?? I'm beginning to get it I think! Guessing I may have to go on the weekend and practice this technique! Spinning class tomorrow then can't go Thursday or Friday! Weekend it is to get practicing and read some stuff on technique and drills.

another possibility is that you could be breathing to much. Depending on your stroke rate.
Try breathing alternative sides.
When I swim, I breathe on every fifth stroke.
This way, I make sure my stroke is long, I've caught/pulled/pushed the whole way through, and that I am completely relaxed.