Session 4: Breathing Technique

Target Audience: For those New swimmers or those returning to swimming, focusing on building confidence, technique, and endurance.
Total Distance: 500m
Duration: ~30 minutes
Equipment: Salty Johnson chlorine-resistant swim briefs or board shorts, goggles, optional kickboard.
Goal: Great session focusing on freestyle, breathe every 3 strokes to each side, try be nice and relaxed through the water.

Session 4: Breathing Technique

·       Warm-Up (100m):

o   4 x 25m Freestyle, breathe every 5 strokes, easy pace (30s rest).

·       Main Set (300m):

o   4 x 50m Freestyle, alternate breathing sides every 25m, moderate pace (45s rest)

o   2 x 50m Kick, easy pace (45s rest).

·       Cool-Down (100m):

o   4 x 25m Freestyle, easy pace, focus on relaxed breathing (30s rest).

Tips for Beginner Swimmers:

·       Rock Salty Johnson’s UPF +50, chlorine-resistant swimwear for intense pool sessions.

·       Burning through the water

·            With only two ways to increase your speed in the water, we often complicate things when trying to go faster. We can increase our stroke rate (move our arms and legs faster) or we can increase our efficiency (reduce the resistance our body creates in the water). This isn’t as easy as it sounds though.

·       Faster strokes (important to do, but there’s a catch)

·            Most swimmers (including myself) find the easiest way to increase swim speed is to increase our stroke rate. There’s nothing wrong with that, in fact it’s vital if you’re swimming with speed. The only problem is it’s energy consuming, particularly if your kick increases with your arm speed. It’s possible to swim freestyle and backstroke with a high stroke rate and not use too much energy if your kicking remains relaxed and small, but in general stroking faster isn’t the way to break through a plateau in swimming.

·       What does efficiency do?

·            Efficiency in swimming means to get further from each stroke taken by increasing your propulsion and reducing your resistance. Put simply, if you get a better ‘catch’ of the water with your stroke and you reduce the amount of drag your body creates in the water, you’ll get faster. This can be difficult to do on your own. If you’re not aware of the common technique errors and how to fix them, your swimming will likely be the same in two years as it is now, even if your train your heart out.