Breathing when learning front crawl

It’s become very obvious over the last 5 years + of running Sea Swim Cornwall that breathing or simply the act of putting your face in the water is quite a big barrier to swimming front crawl for a lot of people. The other issue is that if you haven’t mastered breathing, it makes it incredibly difficult to then work on your leg kick, arm pull, body position etc when you’re still focused on your breathing. Over the last few years we’ve developed a nice little exercise that introduces breathing technique slowly and in a safe and controlled environment.

Step 1 : this can be done in the open water but I think it’s far better done at home. Simply fill the bath up, then sit on your knees and put your face in the water. You’re simply looking to breath out in the water and then bring your face up and out of the water and breath in. These aren’t big breathes, where you’re filling your lungs up. They’re shorter, sharper and quicker breathes. Repeat this for 5-10 minutes until you’r enice and comfortable doing it at quick intervals.

Step 2 : Once you get used to step 1 try and progress to lying flat in the water (on your knees) and breathing to the side…as you would swimming. You’re then looking to having your face in the water for around 2 seconds (breathing out), turn your head to the side and breath in for around 1 second. Keep repeating this for an initial period of around 30 seconds and once you start to get more confident extend the time period to 1 minute +.

Alternative : you can also try this in the open water or with a bucket full of water. Simply stand just deeper than waist depth and lean forward and follow the steps above.

Step 3 : not really a step. Just remember that in the open water the water is a lot colder! Acclimatise to the temperature before trying these breathing exercises. Don’t go straight in and start try them whilst gasping for air and getting used to the cold!

Step 3 : once you’re comfortable with your breathing start to them work on your stroke. Particularly breathing whilst using your arms.

Remember : worth being aware that lots of people that start swimming front crawl in the open water get worried about taking in a mouth full of water. They try to avoid this by over-rotating and bringing their mouth as far away from the water as possible (effectively looking up). This is fine in the very short-term. The problem with doing this long term is that you’re over rotating to achieve this high breathing position. To prevent yourself from rolling too far over and flipping onto your back your leg kick often then become wider (like the stabilisers on a bike). This in turn creates drag and slows you don’t, as well as sapping your energy and preventing you from getting into a rhythm.

Moving forward : it really depends on your lung capacity but you generally want to breath every 2 if your swimming distance. You can breath 3…and you might find that you swim a little straighter doing so. You do this to try and stay in the aerobic energy system for as long as possible…ie. you continue to use Oxygen. If you go into your anaerobic system earlier than you need to, you’ll more than likely find that you get tired and stiff far earlier.

Cornish swims in a strong northerly wind.

You get that horrible strong wind blowing in from the north - where do you swim in Cornwall? Here are some of our suggestions….

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1. Provided the wind isn’t too strong - St Michael’s Mount isn’t too bad. The wind doesn’t have a large fetch to whip up chop, so it remains fairly calm. You have a tail wind on the way out, protection from the island and then you obviously have a head wind on the way back. Swim anti-clockwise as you’ll have a tail wind for the longest stretch and watch out for the ferry on the way back in!

2. If you’re on the north coast and the tides are right…head for the Gannel. Do your research though, you need to get the tides right.

3. You have a number of beaches in the Penzance area, including Mousehole/St Clements Isle, Porthleven area, Rinsey, Prussia Cove…. as well as Porthcurno, Lamorna and Penberth.

4. Lizard area - Kynance (get there early!), Lizard Point or Cadgwith. All stunners. It’s a bit of a drive for most…so do a little mini-tour.

5. Falmouth shouldn’t be too bad. Head for Maenporth and Swanpool areas.

AVOID : You’ll pretty much want to avoid the whole of the north coast and St Ives. There’s not a lot of escape from a strong northly in those areas.

Open water and wild swimming advice

I swore I’d never get sucked in again….yet last week I found myself giving a quick bit of technical swimming advice on a social media page and then 3 days of disputing and arguing the advice, with 60 year old Dave….that took up swimming 3 weeks ago…or whoever else! This is quite a regular pattern it seems. You view any posts asking for help, on social media and you’ll have an avalanche of answers from people that have been swimming for 5 minutes, to people that have been swimming for 50 years. I almost feel sorry for the people that ask for advice, as if you read all of the posted responses it’d take you a week….and you’d be no closer to getting an answer. Or possibly worse, you’d take the wrong advice and be worse off.

Now I’m not arrogant enough to think that I’m definitely right or my way is the only way to do something, to train or sort out an issue. Time and time again however, I find myself reading a post by someone seeking advice and then reading the horror show of answers that people dish out. Ranging from good, solid advice to the ramblings of a simpleton. Now, if you’re asking for advice in the first place you’re probably not qualified to figure out the gems, from the fossilised turds. So what to do…?

My advice would be simple. Look at the source. If you want advice about cold water swimming…ask someone that swims year round. If you want technical advice…ask a coach, ask someone that swims big distances…and just because someone shouts the loudest or uses big words, it doesn’t mean that they know what they’re talking about. The best advice I think I’d give is to get off social media and do your research. Better yet, meet with a coach (when safe to do so) and pay for some coaching. If you’ve just taken up open water swimming for example, and get it wrong early it’s much harder to fix a technical problem later on down the track. Get it right from the start. Failing that - check youtube. It’s a great resource. If you’re not sure….how much to kick on a distance swim or how often to breath - check out what the Olympians do. Make sure you watch the correct discipline though. If you want to know how often to breath over distance, watch a distance race - don’t watch a 50m sprint. You won’t get far not breathing for 50m over a 3 km swim! There are also a number of great slow-mo videos on there.