swimming underwater & breath hold

[jewey4]

Hi everybody,

I really need some advice here! I've started taking an advanced scuba course which requires quite a bit of skin diving skills. This has always been my weakness. Here are my problems...
I can't seem to hold my breath very long while trying to swim underwater. Part of it, I believe, is due to my history of asthma and bronchitis. If I'm sitting in a chair, relaxed, I can do about a minute and a half but once I swim underwater, I last for maybe 10-15 feet horizontally. My goal is to swim to the end of the pool- about 50 feet. My butt and legs shoot up to the surface. I have no problem keeping my front half down and find it very odd that most of my bouyancy lies in the bottom half of my body. So I struggle to stay down and use up all my air. I keep being told a lot of it is mental, but it's hard for me to think that when I start feeling a bit dizzy.
I've tried the frog kick as well, but maybe I'm not doing it right. If anyone has links or video that shows the proper way, that would be awesome. i can't find much on google. I think I'm doing the frog kick but I hardly move as far forward as with a flutter kick. I almost feel like the frog kick pulls me back when I bend my legs so I hardly make any progress.
So any tips on
1) keeping my lower half submerged without added weight
2) properly doing the frog kick or any other efficient kicks and strokes for underwater
3) tips on increasing lung capacity throughout the day or on my spare time ( I just ordered the expand-a-lung in hopes this will help but it'll be a week before I get it)
4) Tips on doing a Skin DNR that I'll have to attempt this weekend. I'm worried I won't be able to hold my breath long enough!

This is just really frustrating because I've been practicing all week with barely any improvement.

Thanks!

 

[MyDiveLog]

First, RELAX!. This is the area that most of our new students stuggle with initially, and some simple relaxation and tips usually are all that's needed to improve considerably.

My bet is that you are "swimming like mad" when you should be gliding and relaxing. We see this when the students have to complete the distance swim in the pool and during the 10 minute water treading exercise. Most push off the wall and immediately start flailing with their arms, kicking like crazy. Ditto for treading water; instead of inhaling a lung full of air and mostly floating they begin kicking harder as they get tired, making things worse.

Before your class this weekend go to a pool and try a few things:
1) Take a deep breath and float face-down in the pool, relaxing. If you are tense, then your arms will pull up tight and ...well, you can usually tell the nervous students because you could bounce a quarter off their buns. If you are relaxed your legs will sink....you said your butt & legs shoot to the surface, but it's almost certainly due to tenseness and the air in your lungs.
2) Do the same thing for a couple of seconds, getting relaxed in the shallow end of the pool, then exhale fully, allowing yourself to lie on the bottom. Your brain will immediately begin screaming that you need air NOW, but work on controlling that impulse for a few seconds. Then do it again, except longer. Remind yourself that you are doing NO MORE work floating than sitting in a chair; there's no reason you can't do this for a minute and a half as well. The human body was amazingly designed; it floats with a full breath of air but sinks like a stone if you exhale all your air.
3) Once you feel comfortable doing this it's time to work on your "push and glide." Start in the shallow end, with your feet against the wall, put your arms out straight, hands together, head tucked in, and push off and glide as far as you can. Remember to "aim" your body about 2 feet under the water ... people typically push off too shallow, then bob quickly to the surface. Keep working on this until you can get 15 to 20 feet with only a push and glide.
4) Repeat, except work on exhaling a bit at the end as you slow down, to keep yourself from bobbing to the surface.
5) Now you're ready to add swimming to the mix. Do the same push and glide, coasting until you're slowing down, then shoot your arms forward and do a breast stroke. You can do a frog kick if you like, but I've found the arms to be much more efficient (the legs, with big muscles, burn more air). Remember that, when your brain starts SCREAMING for you to come up for air and telling you to "PADDLE HARDER" you need to control the impulse, focusing more on relaxing. Depending on the length of the pool you may be able to turn, push, and glide back ... multiple times with shorter pools.

The bad news is that you really CAN'T increase lung capacity "by this weekend"; only repetitive aerobic training (ideally in a pool) can do that for you. I highly recommend it, with alternating periods of in-water "full out" swimming followed by "half speed" swimming/recovery. It will both increase your aerobic efficiency and (more importantly at first) increase your comfort in the water.

The good news is that, by relaxing and learning to work with (rather than against) the water, you should be able to pass the test this weekend.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

 

[spectrum]

Isn't ironic that now that you're going for advanced you need to be good at the basics. :11:

MyDiveLog had a lot of good stuff there. Remember to wind down before going under, I bet you don't do jumping jacks before hitting 1:30 in your chair.

Experiment with arching your back a bit, you can dial in your trim that way. The downside to this is that it's forward velocity that keeps you at depth and this often means swimming harder than you need to.

Try to swim as deep as you can, the pressure will cause a little loss in lung bouyancy and help you stay down. If you're doing this in open water that helps because at something like 12 feet you begin to be quite neutral in a swimsuit or a thin wetsuit in fresh water.

Before you go under enjoy 3 nice deep breaths, In like to exhale deeeeeeeply on the last one than take a nice comfortable full breath and go for it. Don't over do the deep breaths, just 3. Whn you get the hang of it you;ll go down look around and say tanks, who needs tanks.

Pete

 

[divewriter]

a few years ago, I did some pool training with Pipin Ferreras. One technqiue we'd practice in the pool was to submerge and reamain absolutely still for 30 to 45 seconds, then begin the UW swim. Often, I was able to actually swim farther after the wait than when just going under and going for it. Proably don't need to submerge for that long, but the idea is to get relaxed and slow the metabolism before moving.

Hi everybody,

I really need some advice here! I've started taking an advanced scuba course which requires quite a bit of skin diving skills. This has always been my weakness. Here are my problems...
I can't seem to hold my breath very long while trying to swim underwater. Part of it, I believe, is due to my history of asthma and bronchitis. If I'm sitting in a chair, relaxed, I can do about a minute and a half but once I swim underwater, I last for maybe 10-15 feet horizontally. My goal is to swim to the end of the pool- about 50 feet. My butt and legs shoot up to the surface. I have no problem keeping my front half down and find it very odd that most of my bouyancy lies in the bottom half of my body. So I struggle to stay down and use up all my air. I keep being told a lot of it is mental, but it's hard for me to think that when I start feeling a bit dizzy.
I've tried the frog kick as well, but maybe I'm not doing it right. If anyone has links or video that shows the proper way, that would be awesome. i can't find much on google. I think I'm doing the frog kick but I hardly move as far forward as with a flutter kick. I almost feel like the frog kick pulls me back when I bend my legs so I hardly make any progress.
So any tips on
1) keeping my lower half submerged without added weight
2) properly doing the frog kick or any other efficient kicks and strokes for underwater
3) tips on increasing lung capacity throughout the day or on my spare time ( I just ordered the expand-a-lung in hopes this will help but it'll be a week before I get it)
4) Tips on doing a Skin DNR that I'll have to attempt this weekend. I'm worried I won't be able to hold my breath long enough!

This is just really frustrating because I've been practicing all week with barely any improvement.

Thanks!

 

[jewey4]

Hi just want to update this thread with my progress. Well, I think I had the "AHA" moment as far as keeping myself down without my feet shooting up. Instead of a regular frog kick- I've modified it to almost a scissor kick. As long as one leg is pushing down instead of just from the side, I can stay down. I still bend my knees slightly, and as my right leg works just like a frog, I send my left leg upwards and push down and in and it somehow displaces the water and keeps me down. I don't know if this makes any sense but geez- that was a frustarting hurdle to get over. And now- I can do the entire length of my gym pool (20 meters) in one breath. Yes, I'm exhausted and feeling desperate the last 10 feet, but I can do it! And for my class I have to do 50 feet so with 20 meters I've beat that. I havent done the make-up class yet but I'm definitely a bit more confident. I'm only mentally freaked out because it will be in a depth of 10 feet (instead of my gym's pool depth of 4) and I won't have goggles. So that will definitely be a mental thing I will have to conquer.

My next goal at the gym is to get comfortable with the full 20 meters and not feel completely exhausted. I try to relax and glide but found that I don't glide very far and need to do small flutter kicks in between each (modified) frog kick. Not sure why I don't glide very far- I'm trying to stay streamlined with my arms and legs but I don't get very far.

As far as a skin DNR- I'm having trouble with that. The class is having us wear our 7mm wetsuit in the pool and I have a hard time just getting to the bottom. I get to the bottom, place the weightbelt on my lap and feel over exerted and shoot up to the surface. I'm doing a pike to get down but it's just really hard- especially without fins.

As far as improving my breath hold time- I've been swimming as much as I can, lifting weights, and I bought a little contraption called Expand-A-Lung which I believe has helped. It provides resistance to each inhale and exhale which strengthens the lungs. I definitely feel that its contributed to my improvement so I'd say its worth the 25 bucks but I think its mainly been teh fact that I'm practicing.

Anyways- i just wanted to update my progress since you all gave me such wonderful advice. I ahven't tried holding my breath for 40 seconds and then swimming- but hey maybe i'll do that tonight. Thanks again- and I'll let you know if, I mean WHEN, I pass!

 

[MyDiveLog]

It sounds like you are making good progress. Keep up the good work.

You should be cautious about doing any breath-hold work, even in a shallow pool, without a lifeguard or a fellow buddy keeping an eye on you. About a year ago I read of a guy dying just that way in a fitness center pool. Everyone expects drownings to be a flailing, noisy affair, but I've heard that they are eerily silent ... thank god I've never had to deal with one.

As for having you swim down wearing a 7 mil and no weights...that seems a bit extreme. I had to do it in the ITC for NAUI, and it was a real challenge in a pool only 9' deep. I've done pike dives in the open ocean in a 7 mil and have never gotten much below 10 feet without weights. In the pool the trick is to have great pike dive tecnhique, swim like **ll, and loop your arm through the BC (mine was weight integrated) as soon as possible.

Good luck!

 

[DOXA]

Hi just want to update this thread with my progress. Well, I think I had the "AHA" moment as far as keeping myself down without my feet shooting up. Instead of a regular frog kick- I've modified it to almost a scissor kick. As long as one leg is pushing down instead of just from the side, I can stay down. I still bend my knees slightly, and as my right leg works just like a frog, I send my left leg upwards and push down and in and it somehow displaces the water and keeps me down. I don't know if this makes any sense but geez- that was a frustarting hurdle to get over. And now- I can do the entire length of my gym pool (20 meters) in one breath. Yes, I'm exhausted and feeling desperate the last 10 feet, but I can do it! And for my class I have to do 50 feet so with 20 meters I've beat that. I havent done the make-up class yet but I'm definitely a bit more confident. I'm only mentally freaked out because it will be in a depth of 10 feet (instead of my gym's pool depth of 4) and I won't have goggles. So that will definitely be a mental thing I will have to conquer.

My next goal at the gym is to get comfortable with the full 20 meters and not feel completely exhausted. I try to relax and glide but found that I don't glide very far and need to do small flutter kicks in between each (modified) frog kick. Not sure why I don't glide very far- I'm trying to stay streamlined with my arms and legs but I don't get very far.

As far as a skin DNR- I'm having trouble with that. The class is having us wear our 7mm wetsuit in the pool and I have a hard time just getting to the bottom. I get to the bottom, place the weightbelt on my lap and feel over exerted and shoot up to the surface. I'm doing a pike to get down but it's just really hard- especially without fins.

As far as improving my breath hold time- I've been swimming as much as I can, lifting weights, and I bought a little contraption called Expand-A-Lung which I believe has helped. It provides resistance to each inhale and exhale which strengthens the lungs. I definitely feel that its contributed to my improvement so I'd say its worth the 25 bucks but I think its mainly been teh fact that I'm practicing.

Anyways- i just wanted to update my progress since you all gave me such wonderful advice. I ahven't tried holding my breath for 40 seconds and then swimming- but hey maybe i'll do that tonight. Thanks again- and I'll let you know if, I mean WHEN, I pass!

A 7 mil with no weight is like swimming with a lift bag attached to your legs. Why not use some weight?

Swimming under water is something one has to learn. Well not the short distances, but more like 75+ meters. This all comes up to 25% lung training and 75% swim technique. About the latter: Swim slowly, this burns O2 a lot slower. When you feel the need to breath, start swallowing and if that doesn't help anymore, breath out slowly. It sets your mind of to something different and it prevents a floating problem at the end of the swim.

D.

 

[ScubaSarus]

Also keep practicing and do some minor breath holding excercisses 1-1/2 min or so but don't overly do it. I heard from a free diver that overdoing breath holding excercises even in your living room can be dangerous. Don't give up.