Date:
Feb 11 2010 - 7:30pm - 8:30pm
In the final week, we brought together breathing skills and full stroke mechanics, and identified potential obstacles for how they interact with each other.
The following is a fairly detailed list of things to practice on your own. You do not need to do ALL of them in one practice. Our recommendation would be to focus on one drill set and explore it thoroughly per session.
Key guidelines:
* Keep it simple, one focus point at a time!
* Develop body awareness through exploring the sensations that both exaggerated variations and fine tuning, of intended postures and mechanics, bring to you.
* Repeat, repeat, and repeat with accuracy each focus point to achieve muscle memory imprinting.
Pool: Breathing mechanics
Drill 1: Exhale control
Standing in shallow water take a deep breath and lower yourself in the water just enough to submerge your mouth and nose. Aim to exhale through your nose with the tiniest bubbles.
Check: After 20 seconds aim to still feel that you have lungs that are near to full.
Experiment: Different kinds of exhalation (fast, slow, nose, mouth) to experience how to best control your exhalations. This will be useful for different situations (speeds, increased need for air, etc).
Drill 2: Exhale - nose and mouth
With control as per Drill 1, exhale from nose. Inhale and repeat with exhale from mouth. Inhale and repeat with exhale from both mouth and nose. To inhale, either turn your head or simply raise your head out of the water.
Do 10 of these practice breaths in place of resting at the wall during a relaxing swim.
Drill 3: Breathing in glide position
* Once you feel comfortable doing drill 2, now try it in glide.
* With relaxed kicking turn your head slowly for breath.
Check: Arm, opposite glide side, is pressed firmly to your side with elbow straight and pressed to upper hip.
Check: Hand is on front or inside of your thigh as opposed to the outer side of your thigh.
Check: There is no vertical bobbing in the water as you rotate to air. (If there is and you struggle to resolve this, contact us for advice).
Check: If water is going up your nose and distracting you from achieving this drill, put on a nose clip or a mask until you can achieve it smoothly and consistently. Once you are comfortable at reaching air and no vertical bobbing, remove the assisting device and aim to achieve the same confidence without through accurate mechanic, end posture, and breath control.
Experiment: Since your goal is to reach air easily without sinking, lifting the head, and running out of air in your lungs too early, it helps to try variations that develop confident familiarity with the consequences of postures and mechanics that you would expect of yourself and those you would not. “What if?”
Experiment: With a nose clip or mask, try exhaling more than 75% of your air and then turn for a breath in glide position. See where you end up and develop sensitivity for the correlation between lung volume and buoyancy. Try more and more lung volume until you can reach air without any issues.
Drill 4: Single switches
* Single switches, starting in glide for a few seconds then perform a stroke ending in glide on the opposite side (the switch).
* After the switch, from the glide position, rotate head to air for breath.
* Repeat this 10 times each side or further to seek consistency and comfort.
Check: Upon completing the stroke, glide posture is accurate and a solid foundation towards taking a relaxed breath
Drill 5: Multiple switches
Repeat Drill 4 with multiple switches before taking the breath.
Check: Upon completing the last stroke, glide posture is accurate and a solid foundation towards taking a relaxed breath
Drill 6: Witness Effect of Breath
* 3-6 strokes before breathing.
* End your breathing stroke in glide instead of continuing into the next recovery and leave your head rotated to air.
* Stay in glide until you lose your momentum (3+ seconds) and then repeat.
* Kick very lightly to maintain momentum if your kick is not distracting your posture or your position in the water. If you do not know, try the drill without kicking in glide.
Check: Your mouth reaches its ending position and has no further vertical change while resting in glide.
Check: Do you have to kick to keep your mouth at air? You should not need to! Refresh pointers on laying your head into the water throughout its rotation to air.
Check: Head down causes no vertical bobbing, head turned for breath should cause no vertical bobbing, and head rotating should cause no vertical bobbing.
Check: Nose is not higher above the water than the chin. The line between chin and nose is parallel to the surface of the water.
Check: Initiate laying your head into the water immediately as your mouth rotates to air. Think “front, side, and back” when you are looking to release your head into the water.
Check: Neck should be aligned with torso, not lifting the head and angling up from the torso.
Check: Ensure mouth immediately follows torso rotation to air. Mouth rotating to air is simply maintaining your neck rotation relative to your torso, not actually a turn of the neck. Your body rotation takes your mouth to air.
Experiment: Tilting the chin towards air and letting the crown of the head reciprocally sit into the water, will put the weight of the head into the water removing the bobbing effect and moving your mouth to the highest point it can be without using arms and legs to compensate.
Experiment: Perform without kicking during glide.
Experiment: Rotate mouth to air less and less, to see how little rotation you require while still getting air. Some people rotate only enough to breathe out of a corner of their mouth. Ideally breathing is done while facing in a direction that is minimal in angle to the plane of the water, such as looking at the side of the lane and slightly above.
Experiment: Wear nose clip or mask to master this sensitive and subtle posture/mechanic.
Note: Removing the distraction of water going up the nose in this drill will allow you to have confidence to test “what-if” variations and thoroughly see the effects on your position in the water and your potential to reach air.
Drill 7: Full stroke rhythm without breathing / Full stroke with breathing
To breathe without wasted effort, first look to achieve a comfortable and relaxed stroke rhythm. Then look to fit breaths into that rhythm without disrupting it. You can practice breathing more effectively by developing and imprinting a comfortable rhythm first and foremost.
* Repeat focus points as your work through only 4-7 full strokes without breathing (breath hold).
* You are looking for fluidity.
* Once you feel fluid without breathing try adding in a breath or two and achieving the same sensation of rhythm and fluidity while you work on a specific breathing focus points.
* Repeat drill 6-8 times on one single focus before moving on to the next focus point.
* Limit yourself to 3-4 focus points per practice session.
* Select focus points that you feel are most helpful to your comfort and accuracy for the stage of your stroke development.
For example:
4-7 strokes no breath (patient catch)
4-7 strokes with 1-2 breaths (pick focus point from the “Breathing Focus Points” list below)
Breathing focus points:
* Hand Entry: Think "exhale/turn" as recovering hand enters the water
* Cheat:
As you prepare for a breathing stroke, rotate your head slightly in the direction in which you will breathe to. It is very important here to maintain the neutral head position floating in the water with a relaxed neck as you do this.
In essence, you are rotating your head to the limit of its range of motion, maintaining this rotation through the next stroke until you achieve glide position on the new side. Your head should now already be in a position to breathe as long as you are not holding your head out of the water.
* Exhale Timing: Exhale sharply though the mouth as you turn for air. Try different timings of this exhalation to see what the possibilities are.
* Relax Neck First, Then Breathe: This ensures you maintain head and spine alignment that is key to reducing bobbing, getting your mouth to air, and maintaining your glide.
* Lay the crown of your head in the water as you turn your head to breathe: This also ensures you maintain head and spine alignment that is key to reducing bobbing, getting your mouth to air, and maintaining your glide.
* Wide Tracks: Directing your hand and arm slightly wide of your shoulder on the entry for each stroke will give you stability and help you avoid over rotation and sinking. This will usually make the breath easier. Try variations to see what effect your tracks have on breathing.
