lane swimming

The sport of swimming involves your head being below the water most of the time, so it is important to achieve a good swimming balance. The majority of swimmers put a lot of concentration, practice, focus and effort into improving their swimming style. However, if basic breathing techniques are not followed, all this effort will go to waste and your swimming stroke will lose its smoothness. It is essential that anyone who swims professionally or swims to get fit perform breathing exercises for swimmers. Furthermore, it is beneficial to also implement a good breathing technique. Initially, at the beginning, you may feel it a challenge to focus on breathing and executing the swimming stroke, but with practice the difference will soon be noticeable.

Breathing Exercises for Swimmers

Ensuring you perform the stroke correctly while observing a good swimming breathing technique can be difficult at the same time. Initially, always start off with a basic practice swimming routine. This way the chances of inhaling water are minimal.  A very simple breathing exercise for swimmers is to dip your head in a large or medium mixing bowl filled with water.  Placing a mirror at the bottom of the water-filled bowl will ensure better results.

The steps below will ensure you perfect your breathing technique:

  • First dip your chin in the bowl and practice swimming breathing nose inhaling, mouth exhaling and see how your breath ruffles the surface of water.
  • After about 30 seconds, touch your lips & nose to the surface and try to inhale through the small amount of space at both the corners of the mouth. A blotting effect should be seen (in the mirror) where the lips and nose touch the water.
  • After another one minute, you need to lower the rest of your face into the bowl. Keep your mouth open underwater, but do not exhale. The natural air pressure in your mouth will prevent the water from entering your nose and mouth.
  • When you next lift your face out of the water, you should be able to inhale from the nose easily.
  • Repeat these exercises and gradually make an attempt to inhale from your nose, while the tip of your nose still touches the water.

It won’t be long before you master this technique. As soon as you are used to breathing with the mixing bowl, you can then progress to a shallow pool where you can submerge your head in deeper water.

Breathing exercises for swimmers are considered a primary part of training because breathing in a rhythm means more stamina. If you are able to inhale more air then you can get more oxygen in every breath and breathing in a rhythm will let you swim for a long time before you are winded out. POWERbreathe IMT is a good breathing exercise for swimmers as it improves breathing strength and stamina.