Underwater swims

stephenrhinton · July 2015

Something I have been trying on a lark recently is to see how far I can swim under water before I need to resurface for a breath. I can get maybe 15meters. Anyone else do this? What sort of lengths can you put up? Is it better to take a breath and hold it so you have some oxygen in your lungs. Or to blow it all out so you are less buoyant? What stroke do you use? I can see this as something that would improve turns and aerobic fitness.

mpeters1965 · July 2015

Hmm. I haven't tried it since I was a kid so I'll try it in the morning and let you know.

It used to be a competition with my brothers (come to think of it, just about everything was a competition with them). When I was doing Masters, we had a drill where you would try to swim a 25yd length without a breath. I could do it, but only if I was rested and barely kicked my feet. Even then, my lungs were burning by the end. I would hold my breath for the first part and then slowly start letting it out the last.

girlwithcurls2 · July 2015

I don't know how far I could go. They don't allow "prolonged breath-holding" or underwater swimming at my pool. As a little kid, this was the ONLY part of swimming lessons I could do (probably because my feet were on the bottom of the pool in the shallow end). I used to get tapped on the head by the instructors because I could stay under for so long. I was a singer in high school which requires a lot of breath control. I would think people who play woodwinds or brass instruments would make great underwater swimmers!

rosebarnalice · July 2015

I used to be able to do a length of the pool or 25 yards. But haven't tried it on a while.

mpeters1965 · July 2015

Well that was a major fail!

After my 150 yd warm up and before my mile, I decided to try this "how far can you swim under water thing". Maybe 3 yds past the back stroke flags. Not far. And it wasn't really my breath control that was a problem, it's that I couldn't stay underwater. I just pop up! I am usually underwater to just past the flags for the start of any lap but then I come to the surface and start swimming. I just didn't know how to stay under. I am going to have to work on this more...

stephenrhinton · July 2015

Yeah, I've been using essentially a breast stroke, but you definitely have to be swimming 'down' as well as forward to keep from surfacing. I suspect this is less of a struggle for less buoyant peoples. And I'm thinking a breast stroke pull with a flutter kick might work better than the frog kick.

fishgutzy · July 2015

I don't even try. At my old Y there was a former Marine who was a rescue swim instructor. He had no problem going 25 yards.

Kida_Adeylne · July 2015

My coach has had us do 'dolphin dives' to try and see how far we could go. I was rubbish at the dives. I can swim 25m without a breath though - I occasionally do wind sprints to practice. I have to go really really fast on front crawl to do it.