Why Am I Exhausted After Swimming 50m!?

Are you struggling to swim? Are you struggling to swim further than 50 meters? Often, this doesn't make any sense at all. You might be otherwise fit, able to do lots of other sports, maybe run for over an hour, cycle for over two or three hours. Why are you left feeling totally exhausted when you swim? Well, you're certainly not alone, and the answer to this may not be quite as you expect. Swimming can be an incredibly frustrating sport. It doesn't really follow the trajectory of a lot of other sports where, generally speaking, the more time and effort you put in, the better or the quicker you get. With swimming, you could follow all sorts of tips and advice and technique. You can put months of training in and sometimes get no quicker. In fact, sometimes you can even get slower when you start messing around with your technique, which can be so, so frustrating. This video here today is to help you with that and identify some of the reasons and fixes with that. Before we get to that, if you're enjoying these videos and you're finding them helpful, then do support us here at GTN by not only giving this video a like, but also subscribing to the channel for free, and that will then notify you when some of our future videos come out. Straight in with probably the main reason why you are struggling to swim or swim further than 50 meters, and that is your breathing, or more specifically and accurately, your poor breathing. Now, we are aerobic machines, meaning that we need a continuous and regular supply of air in order to function. Now, when we're doing a lot of other sports, you are able to do them for a significant amount of time because we're able to breathe as and when we want. You might push harder or go faster, and that will require you to take bigger, deeper breaths, or maybe even start taking more regular, shorter, sharper breaths. You might even be able to push yourself to the point that you can't keep up because you're running so fast and you get out of breath. In swimming, things are slightly different. We're not controlled by just that desire and need to breathe as and when we want. We're controlled by when our head is in and out of the water, meaning that if we want to take a breath, we need to wait until, obviously, our head comes out of the water. Otherwise, we're going to be coughing and spluttering over to the side of the swimming pool. We need to sort that out. We need to make sure that you're breathing effectively and as efficiently as possible when you are able to do so. The reality is, it's not that you're unable to swim more than 50 meters, it is that you're not able to get the oxygen or air in in order to keep those muscles working. Let's dive into four breathing issues to see if you can identify, perhaps, the issue that you're dealing with. Holding a breath. Our natural inclination when we go underwater is to hold our breath. You need to let go of that impulse. You need to exhale under the water during your stroke. Ideally, you need to exhale all of the air from your lungs, trickling the air out whilst you swim and then pushing the last bit out just before you breathe again. Empty lungs create a vacuum and it's quicker and more efficient to inhale. Holding your breath, even for a second, leads to CO2 buildup, which can actually lead to feeling breathless. It also increases your body tension, so just don't do it. Exhaling too much. Now, this is less common, but essentially is when you exhale too much or too soon before you're actually able to breathe. Obviously, leaving you for a period of time with a lack of air or oxygen, which is going to send a bit of a critical alert situation to your brain and result in panic breathing, where you gasp when you're next available and able to take a breath. This obviously is an efficient and good way of breathing. Now, generally speaking, this just comes down to a bit of a timing issue and a bit more practice learning how to exhale gradually underwater and time it with being able to then take the next breath in will work. Rushing your inhalation. Both of the previous points can lead to gasping inhalation. While this gets air in quickly, it's not deep and so it doesn't lead to full lungs, which means you need another breath sooner, which you can't as you're waiting for the breathing stroke and then your next breath becomes a gasp too, and so on. Exhale underwater, so when you turn your face to the air, every moment your mouth being out of the water can be deprecated to inhalation and then take a deep full breath in. Breathing too infrequently or too frequently. Now, this is all about timing your stroke with your breath. Now, some people breathe every three strokes, maybe every four strokes, but a lot of people, and I would suggest this if you're new to swimming, should breathe every two strokes. I actually breathe every two strokes. This means that you're always breathing either to the left or always breathing to the right. You probably find that you have a preferred side. Now, a little note on this, you might have also heard people talk about bilateral breathing where you're breathing to either side and the benefits behind that because the symmetry of it, it balances out the stroke. Now, if you've identified that breathing is your issue and you're struggling to breathe or swim for more than 50 meters, then that is far more important than you trying to work on bilateral breathing. This balance is something you're worried about. You can always just breathe to your left going up one lane and then coming back down, breathe to your right so you can balance things out a little bit. Now, the opposite end of the spectrum, you might be breathing too frequently. This might sound odd, but what's happening here is you're struggling to exhale in time before taking the next breath in. It all ends up just a bit rushed, a bit gasped, and you're not really getting enough air in in the end. Now, there are two things you can do here. Either exhale harder underwater, and that'll probably be the first cause, or then actually resorting to breathing less frequently, maybe upping it to breathing every three strokes or four strokes if you find that's needed. I wanted to bet that for most people, we've identified the cause to your issues and hopefully give you some solutions to that. Perhaps there is something else that's leaving you unable to swim or exhausted after 50 or 100 meters. Over-kicking. Kicking too much means a lot more muscles need oxygen and getting enough air is far harder. Decrease the leg kick effort to three out of 10. Decrease the amplitude of your kick so it is more of a flutter and work on your kick so it is still effective at keeping your feet up and your body balanced without needing to be really hard. It's okay to use a pool buoy as you get used to using your legs less, just don't get too reliant on it. You're swimming too hard. You might be simply working and trying too hard. Like most sports where the more effort or the harder you work, the faster you go, with swimming, unfortunately, there is a bit of an optimal point. If you go over that, things like your technique start to fall apart. Rather than getting faster, you might actually get slower. Play around with this. Perhaps time yourself over a certain distance and play around with the speed. Maybe try and go more of a relaxed effort and see if you can still cover it at the same speed. It's a fun little experiment. You can also play around with just popping a pool buoy in to balance out the stroke and then just work up the distances with time. Poor balance, dropping legs. It could be you're out of breath because your balance is out and your legs are dropping. This makes breathing harder as it takes more effort to get your mouth to the air. It also makes you less efficient as it takes more effort to move you through the water. Finally, a high head. If you're swimming along with your head pointing up, looking down the lane ahead of you, it's probably going to result in your hips and your feet dropping and dragging. When it comes to breathing, it's going to make it that bit harder. All these points actually link us back to the original first point of the day, the main points, the breathing paradox when it comes to swimming. We want to breathe more, we want to get more oxygen, so then we end up gasping and trying to take these quick breaths in, but actually, it results in less oxygen and a higher and greater sense of breathlessness when swimming. Instead, we want to slow things down and relax a bit more and get some easier, deeper, full breaths in and then exhale fully underwater when our head is submerged in the water ready for the next breath in. With time, you should be able to swim 50, 100 meters, or even 1,000 meters or more with time. I hope today's video has helped you. If you've got any more questions, drop them in the comment section down below. Again, if you enjoyed today's video, please do give it a thumbs up, give it a like, and don't forget to subscribe.