Anyone here swim?

Hi,

I have been taking swim lessons for the past few weeks. I have run into an issue breathing while swimming. I wonder if anyone else with apnea swims, and if they have noticed issues breathing. On land, I can breathe freely via my nose, but if I breathe from my mouth, I get a lot of resistance. If I slant my neck forward, it gets easier to breathe from my mouth. I find that really helps when I am running. However, with swimming, I find that I cannot use my nose (I have to use a nose plug or I inhale water through my hose), and I have to keep my neck straight to avoid upsetting my balance and sinking.

To add to the puzzle, I have a paralyzed diaphragm. When running, I compensate by using my core muscles to assist in breathing to take over for the diaphragm. But with swimming, I have to keep my core pretty tight or my body will bend and my legs will sink. As a result, I cannot really use my core to assist in breathing.

The net-net is that I have a really hard time getting a full breath of air. Does anyone else struggle with breathing while swimming? I know that I will probably get stronger over time as I do it more, but right now, it feels like the road ahead is long and bumpy.

-john-

They make snorkels for swimmers. I've seen several models, some make you look like a dopey unicorn:



and others are high-tech and look pretty cool:



Personally I've never used one but I would imagine they could probably make it a lot easier if you're having issues.

Congratulations on learning to swim, it is definitely a skill that could come in handy when the need arises.

jweeks wrote:Hi,

I have been taking swim lessons for the past few weeks. I have run into an issue breathing while swimming. I wonder if anyone else with apnea swims, and if they have noticed issues breathing. On land, I can breathe freely via my nose, but if I breathe from my mouth, I get a lot of resistance. If I slant my neck forward, it gets easier to breathe from my mouth. I find that really helps when I am running. However, with swimming, I find that I cannot use my nose (I have to use a nose plug or I inhale water through my hose), and I have to keep my neck straight to avoid upsetting my balance and sinking.

To add to the puzzle, I have a paralyzed diaphragm. When running, I compensate by using my core muscles to assist in breathing to take over for the diaphragm. But with swimming, I have to keep my core pretty tight or my body will bend and my legs will sink. As a result, I cannot really use my core to assist in breathing.

The net-net is that I have a really hard time getting a full breath of air. Does anyone else struggle with breathing while swimming? I know that I will probably get stronger over time as I do it more, but right now, it feels like the road ahead is long and bumpy.

-john-

I swim and have a tendency to get water in my nose, so my solution is to always exhale out my nose, so no water can come in. If I understand your post correctly, the solution would be to breathe in through your nose. That is not usually what swimmers do because there is too great an opportunity to get water up your nose.


Trying to problem solve this, my recommendation would be to find or fashion a snorkle made to breathe through your nose. I use a tap pap mask, and I wonder if something like that would work?

Wow, with a paralyzed diaphragm you have 70-80% diminished lung capacity when lying down, so you probably have to sleep upright? I would think swimming is the least of your problems. Did your diagnosis of paralyzed diaphragm identify the cause?

Another possible solution is to try the side-stroke and/or the back-stroke, that would be less hardware intense.

You need a better swimming teacher, one who has experience with physical therapy for the disabled and can train you how to use what abilities you have better.

RandyJ wrote:Wow, with a paralyzed diaphragm you have 70-80% diminished lung capacity when lying down, so you probably have to sleep upright? I would think swimming is the least of your problems. Did your diagnosis of paralyzed diaphragm identify the cause?

Randy,

I was measured at breathing 63% (by volume) compared to a typical 50 year old. Despite that, my VO2max is 48, whereas average is somewhere around 32 to 35. That means that while I don't get the volume of air that average people get, my body is really, really good at processing it. I can do a half marathon in the hour and 40 minute range, and have done a sub-4 hour marathon.

After doing some physical therapy, I can make the diaphragm move in some circumstances. But with normal breathing, either my brain isn't sending a strong signal, or that signal ends up extremely weak by the time it gets to the muscles. Since I carried an excessive amount of abdominal weight for 40 of my 50 years, it could simply be atrophy since it was wedged in against all that fat and unable to move.

Swimming might not be my biggest issue, but one of my big goals is to do a triathlon next spring. That gives me 9 months to figure this out and get up to speed.

-john-

Diggah wrote:They make snorkels for swimmers. ...Personally I've never used one but I would imagine they could probably make it a lot easier if you're having issues.

Hi,

That is a good idea. I hadn't considered a snorkel because they are not allowed in most triathlons, but I could use one while I work on other aspects such as building up endurance in the water. Once I get better endurance, then I can go back to figuring out the breathing. After doing a bit of google'ing, I see that they do make hi-tech versions that have a center mount for fitness training as opposed to the side mount used by recreational swimmers.

-john-

Ok, looking back at the Alexander technique workshop I had and learning to ride horse, what you probably are doing is turning your whole body into a rigid board.

Often when we turn the head in any direction we tighten too many muscles including the jaws. When I first started to learn to ride, the instructor would tell us to sing Twinkle, twinkle little Star, most of us could barely squeek because of the tension in our bodies, including the throat. When told to draw circles with my foot, every muscle from my foot to my waist cramped up and that was after I thought I had relaxed them all. Note that I have been doing Yoga since the 70's and was at that time doing Shiatsu massage, I knew a relaxed muscle when I met one, I thought.

I suggest you spend a lot of time in Jelly fish position, first just relaxing and then starting to make little circle with the hands and feet, paying very close attention to just moving those muscles. Do it on shore, and note how the rest of your body feels. At home put your head in the position you need to breathe, put on the nose clamps and SING. Note that once you are moving when swimming you don't need to keep your core muscles rigid in order to keep your legs at the right height, movement will do that.

You need to find the exact balance of relaxed muscles and working muscles otherwise you will use many times the energy needed to do the laps.