How to learn how to exhale under water?

I am definitely a novice swimmer, but I have experienced this.  It took me a while to get this down, but when you do it is a huge advantage.  Spend time concentrating only on slowly exhaling through your mouth and nose at the same time.  If you push the air out too fast you risk running out, panicing and rushing which always seemed to happen to me. 

One question, how frequently do you breath?

just try putting your head in the water, no swimming at first. 

1.  Take a deep breath
2.  Put face in water
3.  Slowly blow out bubbles
4.  Face up
Repeat. 

Developing a rhythm helps a lot.  Try counting to 4 when exhaling.

When youa re comfortable with face in water, add in some movement - breaststroke or whatever, to get use to breathing out in the water while moving.  Do it slowly. 

how frequently do you breathe - depends on how comfortable you are.  I range from breathing every 10 strokes to every 2.  Usually the earlier part of the workout I breathe less frequently. 

I breathe (above water) every other stroke.   I'm very novice and when I tried breathing from 2 sides, I found that I would get too flustered so I just generally pick a side and stick to it for breathing.  

I was practicing exhaling with a kick board to get used to it without actually having to concentrate on swimming.  When I was exhaling under water, I was just exhaling, inhaling above water, etc pretty continuously. 

Do you sometimes breathe below water?  Now that would be quite an advantage!

well, breathing = inhale AND exhale. 

You really don't ahve much time with face above water to complete the inhale-exhale cycle, or you would lose balance. 

So, inhale with face above water, exhale with face under water by blowing bubbles.  When most air is expelled, turn your face up again to inhale.  How long and how often depends on your level of comfort. 

Breathing underwater may seem strange right now, but once you get the hang of it it will feel so natural.  My suggestion - take your breath when your head is above water, then once your face is in the water slowly exhale (I breathe out my mouth - just my preference).  Continue to breathe out until it is time to take your next breath.  This may feel strange now, but exhaling underwater helps me calm down when I get anxious while swimming. 

Try side kicking... take one hand off your kick board and place it on/near your hip.  Have your shoulders vertical in the water, head down, exhale underwater and turn your head to the side your arm is at your hip when you need to inhale.  Switch which arm is forward every length if you can, you will be more comfortable on one side over the other, just takes practice.

This will also improve your body roll/balance, which will give you more time to inhale and should decrease your panic.  If you have fins, start doing this with fins, take them off as your progress and remove the kickboard as you improve as well, good luck!

 Maybe grow some gills?

Thanks guys for the advice.  Tomorrow is swim day again and I'll be practicing!

The key to getting a good breath in is making sure to exhale fully.  I would think it would be extremely hard to get a strong solid exhale and then intake a breath all in the same portion of the stroke.

It would be my feeling that you would not be getting nearly enough oxygen in and would tire out very quickly.  Not to mention how it would screw up your stroke!

I have always (and find it very natural to) exhaled out of my nose.

x2

I would add that, once it starts to feel better while you're standing still, add in some arm movements to get the feel of when you want to take a breath.  For me (when I followed the above plan), I felt comfortable breathing every four strokes.  Now that I've practiced, I can breathe every four or three strokes.

Don't worry about how you look when you practice this, either.  The lifeguards and such know exactly what you're doing, as they've done this too!!

-Joel

 You know what was funny is that when I was practicing humming, I was humming the tune of the wicked witches army in the Wizard of Oz.   I was then wondering if anyone could hear me under water and wonder what the hell I was doing.

Another tip - when I learned to swim we started with those steps above. Then we "bobbed" to practice.  Basically we would stand in the shallow end and go underwater to exhale and pop up to breathe.  When we came up, we didn't stay up long, just got the breath and went back down.  We did it before every swim lesson to get the pattern of inhale/exhale before we started.  Sometimes when i'm having a weird day in the pool, i'll do a few of these and it helps me get back the right way to breathe.  You can also do them in the deep end by holding on to the side of the pool.  You hold on or do it in the shallow end so that the whole focus is on the breathing pattern and you aren't worrying about treading or the stroke or any of that stuff. 

How can you breath out of your mouth and nose at the same time.   I can't do it.  (Maybe this is why my swimming sucks?)  Or do you mean breath out of your mouth/nose and then your nose/mouth?

When you are exhaling with your mouth opened, you are breathing out from both. 

I can totally relate.  I knew that you were supposed to exhale under water, I just couldn't do it.  I litterally could not put my face in the water and make any air come out.  Instead I held my breath, but then you run into that whole having to exhale and inhale with head out of the water, and my body would try to go vertical.  I took some swimming lessons, and I am doing a lot better, particularly with breast stroke, but the front crawl is still so hard.  My form falls to pieces after about 50 meters.  This is something that I am just going to have to really focus on, and try to get.  

You will get it though.  I can tell that with practice it already feels a bit more natural.  I also have to warm up by doing about 20-30 bobs in the shallow end to get the breathing started.  For whatever reason I can't just get in the water and start exhaling.  Maybe that will come.

jami dotten