Q: I have read your articles on Metrics-Tempo, Pace, etc with a lot of interest. What I was wondering, if you increase your DPS [distance per stroke], that means your SPL [strokes per length of pool] goes down. If SPL goes down, doesn’t that mean you will take less breaths in a minute? Won’t less oxygen impair the ability to swim longer distances?
I am probably missing something here, but would like your views
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Here is my response:
Yes, longer DPS means a longer stroke, which means you take fewer strokes to get to the other wall, which means a lower SPL.
DPS = Stroke Length (SL)
SPL = # of Strokes Per Length of pool, or ‘Stroke Count’
If there were no other dimensions to breathing but just breathing in/out, then yes, longer strokes = longer span of time between breaths = more stress on the cardio-vascular system and less O2 for the muscles.
But breathing involves at least these three variables you have control over:
1) heart rate (an objective way to measure oxygen demand)
2) frequency of breathing (the breathing pattern)
3) quantity and quality of air exchange during the stroke cycle
When seeking to improve your DPS/SL the goal is not to make as long of a stroke as possible, but to reach an optimal stroke length.
Optimal Stroke Length = a small range of DPS/SL that is statistically shown to be our most efficient (in terms of using the least amount of energy, oxygen). This is approximately between 55% and 70% of your wingspan/height. Optimal SL doesn’t complete the speed efficiency equation but it sets up the first, and most important part.
#1 We first use technique improvement to lower O2 demand, primarily through removing struggle against gravity and remove excess drag from poor body shape and poor movement patterns. Reducing wasted effort – lowering energy waste – lowers the Heart Rate. Lower HR = Lower oxygen demand. And a lower demand for oxygen means the swimmer has more options for when breathe.
#2 Once a range of appropriate Stroke Length is developed the swimmer can adjust Tempo and adjust breathing pattern to maintain comfortably-frequent air exchange. A swimmer, especially in open-water, needs to be ready at any time to skip a breath if something prevents one and not feel much stress or desperation about it.
#3 And we work on actual breathing technique (exhale and inhale patterns) to improve exchange, trigger parasympathetic nervous system to lower HR, and thereby lower stress on the brain and body. How we exhale, where we exhale, how much we exhale and inhale- all that has an effect, and we can learn to control it and adjust it.
Let’s take a moderate Tempo of 1.25 and look at how different breathing patterns affect breaths/minute:
- Pattern (Breaths / Minute)
- 2-stroke (24)
- 3-stroke (16)
- 4-stroke (12)
- 5-stroke (9)
- 2-stroke + 3-stroke (19.2)
- 2-stroke + 4-stroke (16)
Which one should you choose? You need to make that decision by what your body says it needs.
But for some reference point on what to aim for: I feel that a good indicator of achieving a basic level of swimming efficiency is to be able to swim comfortably with a 3-stroke breathing pattern in your SPL Green Zone, and in the middle of your Tempo Comfort Zone. Coach Terry also uses a 3-stroke pattern as an ‘aerobic governor’ – if he can maintain a 3-stroke breathing pattern at a racing effort level that is his sign that he is holding in the aerobic zone. If that starts to feel inadequate he knows he is pushing into anaerobic zone. I agree with that guideline and use it myself. I breathe at such a pattern that allows me to skip a breath from time to time when I get smacked by a wave or something. I would switch to 2-stroke only in an anaerobic sprint and know I have limited time at that effort level.
Does that make sense or raise more questions?
**
To answer the shortest question:
How do I get enough breath while swimming?
- Lower heart rate by lowering your struggle against natural forces outside and tension inside the body.
- Increase the frequency of breathing, while decreasing that struggle.
- Improve your method of inhale and exhale.
The first product of technique training is to lower the demand for energy/oxygen. Speed is not the first product (it is the third one). The first obstacle is the struggle against gravity. When we quit struggling against gravity (achieving balance and lateral stability), we have removed the largest area of energy waste for human swimmers. The next obstacle is the struggle against excess water resistance (drag). When we minimize drag (by improving body shape and movement patterns) we have removed our second biggest area of energy waste.
Then there is the task of choosing the optimal SPL x Tempo combination to create the desired Pace.
All four of these combinations produce the same Pace. But which one should you choose to use? That depends on factors I’ve explained in the Metrics 101 and Metrics 102 blog series.
A swimmer using either or both an inappropriate SPL (too long or too short) or Tempo (too fast or too slow) for their body dimensions and event will experience an excess and uncomfortable desperation for more air.
This is what our TI training is for – to learn how to control and adjust both SPL and Tempo, which in turn affects Pace and HR. Switching gears – as on a race car or bicycle – to choose the best balance between fuel consumption and speed.
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At last, a simple explanation why I have been getting breathless after 1 length. I have been swimming super slow in an effort to achieve a lower spl. That came at a huge cost. Granted my breathing needs improvement (too much head lift at times), but after trying a faster stroke rate, I was able to go longer distances with just an increase of spl that stayed within my range (based on height/wingspan).
Thanks for such an informative post.
Sherry
At last, a simple explanation why I have been getting breathless after 1 length. I have been swimming super slow in an effort to achieve a lower spl. That came at a huge cost. Granted my breathing needs improvement (too much head lift at times), but after trying a faster stroke rate, I was able to go longer distances with just an increase of spl that stayed within my range (based on height/wingspan).
Thanks for such an informative post.
Sherry
At last, a simple explanation why I have been getting breathless after 1 length. I have been swimming super slow in an effort to achieve a lower spl. That came at a huge cost. Granted my breathing needs improvement (too much head lift at times), but after trying a faster stroke rate, I was able to go longer distances with just an increase of spl that stayed within my range (based on height/wingspan).
Thanks for such an informative post.
Sherry
Yet another outstanding entry MaviMat. I appreciate your command and insight into what makes swimming a movement art, a path for self discovery and a communion with nature. The explanation of how your breath fits into the overall swim equation was very informative.
The other day I was holding pace with my partner, but with much less energy expense. I was holding on to the 3 stroke, alternate breath, breathing pattern for most of it. It felt great even though I was challenged cold water temperatures.
The day before while swimming an open water event with Cibbows, I encountered completely different circumstances. On this day, the water was very choppy with a strong headwind. In this case, I was not able to hold the 3 stroke breathing pattern. First of all one side was into the wind. First big gulp of water made me breath to the other side. Second, you really had to fight the chop. I tried to just keep my head low in the water and torpedo through the waves. But still, I felt an increased energy demand. With my breath a little strained, and the unbalancing of being knocked around by the waves, it was hard to maintain my swimming pool form.
In hindsight, I was experiencing a new level of swimming – a greater challenge. I also found great admiration for those swimmers who swam through this chop with more ease. This 2.5 K (2 Bridges Swim) up in Poughkeepsie, NY and your articles has inspired me to keep developing as a swimmer.
Magnus
Hello Mat,
seems to me your’s and Terry’s “aerobic governor” is for more advanded swimmers (than I). In drills (up to 200m) 3 breath pattern is possible, but it’s always driving into a beginning anaerobic feeling the more to the end. Swimming with 3bp in aerobic state needs slowing down extremely (around 24:30min for 1000m – 20-22min with 2bp as my “normal” time).
So, do you know other “aerobic governors” for a little pace tweak in swims longer than 20min? (My tweaks for now are passing another swimmer who is slightly slower after that, slow down for recovery to his pace and then again a little more up into the old aerobic felt 2bp. But it’s only possible with 2bp.) Or how to bring the 3bp into a relaxed recovery stroke with comparable pace to 2bk steady stroke?
Best regards,
Werner
Every human is a little different – or quite different! There are many factors that can affect respiration ease. So, I don’t mean to make it sound too generalized.
What tempo are you swimming at? That can affect things – if the Tempo is ‘slow’ that means there could be too much time between breaths even if the effort level is low. If we could get some objective measurement of your heart rate while swimming at various Perceived Effort Levels, then we could actually pinpoint what is your true aerobic effort zone and the tempo and pace at which you are in that zone. There is a conversion factor for laying horizontal in the pressure of water immersion compared to standing upright under gravity – the heart rate in swimming at the same effort level will be lower than while running, for example. Same work load quantitatively (theoretically) but the swimming position and condition changes the heart rate and therefore the respiration rate. This is something I need to research a bit more for curiosity sake.
If you aren’t comfortable with straight 3bp, you can also make a compromise: Breathe 2bp on LEFT, then 3 strokes, then 2bp on RIGHT, then 3 strokes, then 2bp on LEFT, etc. That way you still work on bi-lateral breathing, and get a mix of 2bp and 3bp.
Also, check that you are exhaling with small bubbles from the nose continuously on easy effort levels, and a bit more bubbles from nose and mouth on moderately high effort levels. If we hold our breath it creates several negative effects inside the body which makes the heart rate higher and cause us to feel more desperate for air.
Would it be advisable to invest in a good underwater heart rate monitor.? In some other blog you commented that heart rate can be affected by several factors–low immune system, poor technique caused by poor balance and/or excessive drag, poor concentration, new swimmer, poor br eathing technique, etc.
Based on the above, the monitor wouldn’t tell which area needs working on, but it would show any improvement. Not sure if this would be a wise investment.
Hi Sherry! You are right, a monitor will just tell you the results in rate of energy depletion (HR), it won’t tell you the causes. The simple way (the budget method) is to just measure time (objective) and then decide whether it felt easier than yesterday or not (subjective). Ultimately, you will base your satisfaction of performance on what time you swam and how good it felt – not on what HR you maintained. So, those are two tools that you can always afford to measure and that will always be reliable indicators of what is working and what isn’t.
I have a Finis heart rate monitor that slips under the swim cap and clips onto the earlobe. But I rarely use it after I first purchased it. I think it is a useful device, for a certain kinds and certain seasons of training. But I feel I have such a reliable sense of perceived effort (which corresponds to HR) after so many years of training (years ago I used a HRM a lot), that using a HR monitor in swimming or running pulls me out of a superior sensitivity zone rather than aid me in it. But I do think I could invent new ways to use one get some deeper learning opportunities if I was interested in doing so.
At some point, to borrow a concept from Josh Waitzkin (and modify his phrase a little) we want to work with ‘data to leave data’, or in other words, train with external data (like HR) in order to eventually not need it any more. We want to internalize and make intuitive the insight into inner body control that HR data gives us some external viewpoint of. From my approach to this, I would encourage you to use it in order to train yourself how to interpret the internal signals your body gives you at different effort levels, so that you have an accurate subjective measuring system in place for your HR level. Then you won’t need to use a HR monitor any more to know exactly where your rate of energy burn is at.
Using a device like this can be a personal thing too – some will love it, some not. It will gently speak the HR number to you (heard by bone conduction) every few seconds. That can be useful or assuring in some scenarios, or it could be distracting. It depends on the use and the person using it.
I think, under the right mindset and careful planning, this device could provide some good learning opportunities. But I would always treat it as a device that is meant to train and strengthen my intuitive, subjective senses, rather than replace them.
If it interests you and you won’t feel the dent in your wallet, buy one and experiment with it. There will be some useful things to learn from it.
Hey Mat, tks for replying so quickly. Regarding your comments on the heart rate monitor (the kind that fits under the cap and has a clip to the ear), I am a little cautious about this type. I can’t hear the TT even if I place it under my cap and on a bone behind the ear. One of the posters on the TI forum developed a file of various tempos that could be downloaded to a waterproof I-Pod. he was kind enough to share it with me (and several others). anyway, that is why I would be curious how loud that type of heart trainer would be. I know it is around $150, so I hate to part with that much money without knowing if it would work. I have taken my heart manually at times (don’t know if that is accurate) and it is around 94 to109 (RHR about 72)
Tks for the info and keep those blogs coming!
It can be challenging to hear the electronic voice from the HRM. So, you may do as well just taking your pulse at the wall on rest intervals. What you would find anyway, is that your heart rate fluctuates throughout the length of the pool – it goes up while holding the breath on the flip turn and then goes down again. So – it may be more useful to just take occasionally pulse during a quick rest moment, then begin to make associations with small details on how you feel inside with what your HR shows at the wall. This way you can learn how to adjust things inside your body and effort to maintain a certain state of sensation, which corresponds to a certain HR. It’s the old-fashioned way of doing it, but in the long run, I believe it is superior. After all, swimming in a race, or out in the big blue for pleasure we will not be using a HRM to give us data on how we’re doing – we will have to know what the ideal effort/state feels like and maintain it with stroke and body control skills we’ve been practicing.
So, for $150 it may not be worth the investment. Werner was rather clever in how he made his own mp3 Tempo Trainer (he came to me here in Antalya 1+ years ago).
It is also interesting to note that our heart rate – at same exertion level – is 15-30 beats lower in swimming than in running, so they say. And another article said that we burn more calories swimming than running at the same exertion level, but I need to qualify that. I have been thinking of doing a bit of study on this then writing a blog essay on what I discover.
Questions on your table for Patterns (breath per minute) tempo is 1:25 How are you doing your calculations?+ I,e, 3 strokes + 2 strokes- 19,2
I may have explained this in the reply I left on the other breathing post you inquired about…
https://mediterraswim.com/2014/02/15/breathing-patterns/