FATIGUE DURING SWIMMING

Keep swimming.  The only way you will get better is to continue to swim and improve on your form.  The fact that you have 7% body fat and muscular build doesn't mean anything.  Swimming is mainly form.  So you can have the best aerobic engine, but if your form is off you will be winded after even a short swim.

Thank you for the advice.

My suggestions are two:

1. Slow down....when you bike and run you don't always go hard but a comfortable pace so you aren't panting.

2. You are obviously fit so this is a swim related issue. My guess it has to do with the way you breath when swimming. Our natural instinct is to not fully exhale. Do you start to exhale as soon as your face gets into the water? This is key thing to do..some struggle with this so you may try humming as you exhale. When you rotate to breath you want to be inhaling not having to exhale. If you try to exhale and inhale as your head is rotated to breath you will not get a full breath which will make you feel winded. I used to do this so I know how uncomfortable it feels.

By slowing down and making sure you get a full breath you will most likely feel less winded while swimming.

I think swimming-specific musculature is under-emphasized as a limiter to swimming. You are physically fit and musculature, but I doubt you have been able to develop the swimming-specific musculature and muscular endurance required for swimming without swimming. That, combined with going too fast, maybe not rotating and inhaling and exhaling properly, along with form that may lower your hips and increase your drag would be my guesses as a participant and spectator but non-coach. This will come with time. Gut it out and you will continue to improve.

The fact that you have 7% body fat and muscular build doesn't mean anything. 

So, you're saying someone....say a body-builder should swim as easily as someone the size of say......Terry Laughlin (body composition)?

I beg to differ on the body fat issue.  If one only has 7% body fat then one does not float, or float as well as someone with 20% body fat.   When I was teaching life guarding to young adults, male and female; females tended to have an easier time of doing the rescue techniques.  This is because they floated higher in the water than the males, and this is due directly to one's innate buoyancy.  I have known more than a few fit males who do do not float, period.  All were body builders, with wicked low body fat. 

Seems that not only do you have to work hard to go forward, you have to work harder than others do to stay close to the surface to breath properly.

In your case, I would recommend the Easy Free Style video from TI.   This will take you a bit longer to get up to speed, but will give you the technique that is critical for a hyper fit athlete wanting to learn to swim better.

Swimming is a zen sport.    Relax and think about form for the time being. When good form is established, then with your strength training you should become a rocket in the water.

Swimming vs. floating?? 

So if Michael Phelps (~8% bodyfat) would swim faster if he wasn't as lean. 
I think not.

This user's post has been ignored.

Not trying to "prove a point", adding some humor as I've seen many many people do.  Sorry if I offended anyone.

Nobody's offended.  I'm struggling like heck with my swimming, right now.  I'm not using body type as an excuse.  I'm not ignoring it, either.  It is what it is.  And, like the OP, I hope to use it (though I'm nowhere near his BF%) to my advantage, as my fitness increases.  I disagree with nothing Fred said.

I'll back you up here.

I've got huge muscular legs which sink like a stone.

From my masters team, I can see how overweight swimmers (particularly the women) have a much easier time floating properly.



Not really.  Just swim, swim, swim.  And really join a masters swim team.

Eventually you'll find balance in the water, stop fighting against your own bad form, and you'll get (if not much faster) then certainly as fast with much less effort. 

All elite swimmers have low body fat so that is not only irrelevant but has been roundly disproven time and time and time again.  I swim at a club with a number of Olympians and they somehow to manage.  This ridiculous assertion comes up a lot in swimming but it is not in the least bit accurate.  Proper technique is the key to good swimming, not body fat.  Spend some time in any elite training program and all you will see are extremely fit and thin swimmers.

Al Campanis would be so proud of those who still perpetuate this myth.


Edited by aquageek 2010-06-26 3:12 PM

So much for toning down your responses.

The fact that elite swimmers are thin has to do with the volume of work they put in.  Being lean doesn't make them fast.  You're confusing correlation with causation. 

news flash, BF DOES have an impact on how much someone does or does not float.

the part that people dont seem to get is that elite simmwers are moving FAST enough to not sink.
If they slow down enough, just like anyone else, they are going under.

now to carry on with the OP post.

Glad to see that overweight women like myself may have some small advantages in life or at least swimming. 

Funny, I always thought my wetsuit, not my fat butt, was making me float.

While it is a fact that more body fat helps you to float better it has also been proven to slow you down when swimming through increased "frontal surface resistance" meaning the bigger you are the more water being pushed and also through "form drag" which means as a swimmer fattens up in the abdomen, thigh, and buttock areas, swirling eddy currents form around these protruding areas and can slow swimming velocity appreciably. I read a study where each additional pound of body fat slowed swimmers .2 seconds per 50 yards. But the study also said that very thin swimmers might benefit from increased body fat because to thin may mean they increase frontal resistance by not having the fitness to overcome their sinking body. Wearing a wesuit and increasing floatation is a whole different story.

It's almost incomprehensible that anyone is still stuck in the 1950s and still making assertions about body fat and swimming.  If your only hope for swimming is fat, you've got rather dramatic swim problems.  Learn good technique and lose weight, you will be faster.  If you for a single second think fat will in any way assist with your swimming, you are 100% flat wrong.  I've watched Cullen Jones train inner city kids in the learn to swim program, funny how he has never encouraged fatness as some sort of swim aid.  I'm sorry, this subject sickens me to read.


Edited by aquageek 2010-06-26 4:28 PM

So are you going to just keep proclaiming that you're right and everybody else is wrong, or are you going to back up what you say with some evidence? 

n=1

When I started this insanity, my BF% was 29%.  I sucked at swimming.  I was a certified sinker.
My BF% is now in the 12-13% range.  I am top 1/3 at swimming in every tri.

How do you get better at biking? TIS (Time in saddle)
How do you get better at swimming? TIP



Edited by pga_mike 2010-06-26 4:37 PM

Haha, aquageek,

Yes, being fat is my strategy. I think all my excess fat might really help me on the bike and run too.

Do I really need to state that I'm kidding? Oh yeah, I guess I do.

Edited by jpbis26 2010-06-26 4:42 PM

This thread is getting ridiculous.

Nobody is saying that anybody should strive to have more bodyfat to swim better.

Nobody is saying that bodyfat makes you faster.

Nobody is saying that elite swimmers aren't lean.

Bodyfat is buoyant.  Some beginning swimmers float better than their lean counterparts due to this.  That's it. 

Back on topic, I'm guessing that you (OP) may be pacing a little too fast. Not exhaling all the way is a good suggestion as well.  Another thought / question may be about warm up.  Are you warming up before doing the 500 meter swim?  I know that I like around a 200 yd warm up so I can get my heart rate up and let it settle in.  If I don't, I will have a spike in hear rate.

From the weight lifter perspective, I can tell you that after I do heavy bench days (decline, flat, incline and shoulder presses) I fatigue a lot easier during the swim.  To combat this, I found that I can get in a decent swim if I do something like this:

100 yd WU
stop and stretch my arms, chest and shoulders
200 yd WU
stop and stretch my arms, chest and shoulders

Main sets
 - after about 500 yds of continuous swim at an easy pace, the fatigue starts to go away as my muscles begin to quit fighting me.
 - whatever else I had scheduled.

From a technique perspective, can you describe your pull?  Until I figured out how to stop with the straight arm pulls, I would fatigue very easily.  Your lessons should fix that part.

Edited by Pector55 2010-06-26 4:44 PM

Just like most sports..to get better you should train like the best.  The best don't use TI so neither should we...it's just not the fastest way to swim.  The Best don't swim with body fat.  Neither should we.  The best swimmers train with lots of volume with lots of high intensity.  So should we.