Learn to Control your Breathing (Drills to improve your lung capacity in swimming)

It is not a secret that a swimmer has one of the best lung capacities from all athletes or at least should have. :) . Here are a few ways how you can improve your breath holding ability during every day practice.


1. Lungbuster - exhale all your air and when no air is in your lungs, push off the wall and either sprint fly or free for a 25 or sprint fly kick underwater while in streamline with maximal speed of undulation
2. Good ol' underwater swims - 40x25m underwater on 40 etc.

3. Hypoxic swimming - do a set of your chosen distances (3x400 or more) and vary your breathing by 50s or 100s as follows. 1x50 breath every 3, 1x50 every 5, 1x50 every 7, 1x50 every 9 and repeat all over again.
4. Fast fly kicks on your back - do a set of sprint fly kicks in the streamline, head alined with eyes looking up (not behind you), fast undulations coming from the bottom of your ribcage. Why on your back? Answer: To even out your kicking muscles due to the fact that majority kicks are on your front and also, because it is harder to keep the air in. If you can't keep the air in and it is escaping through the nose, use a nose plug (don't be afraid - top athletes do it). That is the last thing you need, air bubbles coming out of your nose.

5. Underwater turns - pick a favorite distance (not below 300) and have a set where you swim from inside the flags-to the wall-to the flags underwater, so only the section in the middle of the pool between the flags is above the water, the rest below.

6. Front snorkel - one of a great ways to work harder in the water is to limit your oxygen intake. Front snorkel is a wonderful tool which will do just that and it will help you with your head and body position. The frontside snorkel is also used for training your proper head position. Even David Marsh, a head coach at the Auburn University in Alabama, is fond of this simple tool and describes its use in his DVD set The Auburn Way .

7. Not taking breaths into the turns and off the turns. This practice is perfect for training to help you get out of it as much as you can. Take one stroke into the turn and one stroke out of the turn without breathing.

POWERbreathe Plus 2 Fitness Model Lung Muscle Trainer

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Nose Plug

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8. Breathless relays - Sprint fly or free as a relay, however, without breathing. If you are not skilled in non-breathing swimming, start with 25's, if you are more advanced I'd do 50's to make it more challenging. There is a catch though. If a person takes a breath during their part of the swim, the relay is penalized by one more swim or by time or any other penalty you can think of to make it interesting.

As Richard Quick, former Stanford's Women's Swimming Coach, mentions in his Championship Winning Swimming Videos, underwater swimming is a 5th stroke and up to 60% of your races can be swam underwater. So here you have it.
One last note, remember that when racing, it is not good to go into an oxygen debt, that is why you'd want to incorporate some of these excercises into your training. And also keep in mind that while in competition, if you have a perfect stroke and body/head position, you can take as many breaths as you want without impacting your speed (there is nothing wrong with that). You will swim faster with more oxygen.

For helping your breathing, you can use Power Breathe (just 2 times 30 breathes a day and you'll see a difference within a week).
Feel free to leave a comment if you know of any other interesting ways to help your lungs get fit.