Greetings everyone! I don’t know if the following that I will be describing is good for me or actually harmful for me. Just recently, as a swim workout for myself, I am swimming pool lengths underwater. I originally only able to swim one length of the pool underwater, over the last couple of weeks, I have now built up to being able to swim 2 lengths of the pool underwater, where I then proceed to do 4 sets of this, with about 2 minutes rest between each set. The swim stroke that I am using in order to swim underwater is, as you would probably expect, the frog stroke. After completing 2 lengths of the pool underwater, my body is so relieved to be able to come to the surface where I then find myself gasping for air and I continue to heavily pat for at least the next minute or two before I am finally able to catch my breath. I know that on one level, swimming underwater using the frog stroke is probably good for me because of the muscles that are involved, that is, the unique set of muscles that I am working. Of course, I wouldn’t bother asking this question on this forum if I was, as you can observe kids always seem to have fun doing, swimming for just a little bit at a time underwater. However, otherwise, I am wondering if swimming for longer periods of time, such as a couple of lengths underwater as I have described above, is actually healthy in the long run for me because of the, for instance, oxygen deprivation (to both my brain and my body) that is involved. I realize that participating in any type of exercise, sometime there is anaerobic depravation, such as in a 100 meter sprint, or, there is aerobic depletion, such as in a 6 kilometer run, and none-the-less, these kinds of activities I believe are still considered as being healthy for oneself. However, I am wondering if the oxygen depletion involved for swimming laps underwater is considered as being somewhat different, and is thus ultimately not healthy for oneself. I recall back in the day, many years ago, when I used to belong to an adult swim club, toward the end of our swim workout, the coach would have us swim intervals of pool lengths underwater as I have previously described above. However, I am wondering now if perhaps, many years later, more up to date information or research has been established identifying prolonged swimming underwater as not being good for oneself. (?) Thank you very much for any responses. The best to all, Greetings!
Meh! Whether it's good for you or not, people have been doing that for years. Had a gent on my swimteam that did 4 laps (100 yds) under water. Free divers can hold their breath for over 4 minutes. Pushing your own limits can result in blackouts. Train smart.
Years past I'd read a lengthy article on the issue. It was related to pearl or sponge divers in Japan. Mostly women and if I recall correctly the gist of it was that it shortened their life span. Primarily having to do with depriving the braincells of oxygen. Don't take that as gospel. I'd read that ages ago and I could be totally wrong. Worth looking at two groups of people for this: 1) Ama women pearl/sponge divers in Japan. Just a heads up... many lovely old black and white photos of these women diving... but they are in their birthday suits usually so it's NSFW. 2) The Sama-Bajau peoples of the Philippines. Who are essentially sea gypsies that spend most of their life on the ocean and much of that time free diving. Their parents usually puncture their children's ear drums at a young age so that they don't end up with ear aches when diving. Anecdotally at one point my good friend Dave Veitch held the breath holding record while swimming underwater laps.He held it for many, many years when he was United States Air Force Pararescue. I think it was broken recently. Not sure how that compares to free divers and the like though.
Here's an interesting report on it. It also may entirely refute what I said earlier about it having hazardous long term effects. Read down to the comments as well. It seems there isn't really a consensus on the long term health effects. http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/is-breath-holding-hazardous-to-your-brain/?_r=0
Arguably centuries. A quick Google turns up the tales of Greek sponge divers of Kalymnos that were diving deep since antiquity.
Well done for being able to do it! I have seen a slight variation before where you sprint in front crawl aa fast as you can down the pool on the surface so still kind of breathing and then when you get to the end straight away go under water and see how far you go. I would say there are probably health risks if you dont give yourself enough resting time in between as co2 will build up. Im not sure if nitrogen build up is a problem I think thats more a divers issue from swimming deep underwater resulting in the bends. Free divers often hyperventilate before a free dive to purge the co2 out to increase capacity. I would probably say the minute you start feeling headachy or unduly tired stop. just my opinions im not a doctor or anything good luck and well done!
Greetings everyone! I greatly appreciate the responses from narcsarge, whitepanda, slipthejab, and StrikingDragon. WhitePanda, you posed a reasonable question, asking me what I was trying to accomplish by doing this. I guess that I was just utilizing just one more method in order to improve my wind, rather, my endurance. As I mentioned, I remember back in the day when I belonged to an adult swim club, the coach would sometime near the end of practice have us doing underwater laps. I assume that he had us doing this because he knew that it would ultimately improve our endurance, in order to improve our race times for various other kinds of swim stroke races. And, I would imagine that that is true. I could be mistaken. However, I would think that underwater swimming would in fact contribute to improving one’s endurance probably for any type of activity or sport. However, again, I am not so sure if my swim coach knew, or if anyone really knew back in those days, if in the long run the oxygen depravation from swimming underwater was OK on one’s brain or body system. Of course, if one swam underwater to the point that they blacked out, then even back then probably everyone, including my swim coach, would agree that that would be definitely harmful to one’s system. Slipthejab, thank you for the helpful information. I appreciate the link that you included which points to the article Is Breath-Holding Hazardous to Your Brain? If I can ask you please, only if you feel comfortable to answer, how old now is your good friend, Dave Veitch, the breath holding record holder for swimming underwater laps? And, how is his health today? StrikingDragon, wonderfully encouraging to me are your compliments, and of course I am thus very appreciative. All, Overall, I would say that the one good thing that I have in my corner is that I am submerged underwater swimming laps until I almost run out of breath, thus, for a total time of maybe only 1 minute or so. Whereas, compared to a pearl diver, that individual is probably submerged for, say, I guess, at least 4 minutes. And, even with the pearl divers, I guess that the jury is still out whether or not the pearl divers will experience long term damage. The best to all, Greetings!
Gaining better oxygen efficiency is a good thing, starving the brain Of oxygen is a bad thing, passing out underwater is a very bad thing. Train sensible and safely and slowly push you limits, and dont do this without a lifeguard present!
Dear Fusen, Thank you for your response. You reasonably stated that “Gaining better oxygen efficiency is a good thing, starving the brain of oxygen is a bad thing, passing out underwater is a very bad thing.” I have already stated, as I am sure that probably most everyone else would agree, that passing out underwater would be definitely harmful to anyone. Period. You stated that “starving the brain of oxygen is a bad thing”. That being said, you may recall that I previously mentioned some examples of, for instance, sometime there is anaerobic depravation, such as in a 100 meter sprint, or, there is aerobic depletion, such as in a 6 kilometer run, but that none-the-less, these kinds of activities I believe are still considered as being healthy for oneself. That being said, and I having already attained helpful information from others, however, I would still be interested in asking you as well, do you think that the oxygen depravation involved with holding your breath in order to swim lengths underwater would overall be considered healthy or not healthy (provided of course that you are not swimming to the point of blacking out)? Thank you very much. All the best to you, Greetings!
Not healthy...you never hold your breath in combat, in fact doing so is tremendously hazardous. Training yourself to work without oxygen is not as sensible as training your body to process the oxygen more efficiently. All that time you are messing about trying to breath underwater is time you could be doing some real combat training
Tear gas or pepper spray? ...under water? Once marrying breath and motion becomes relfexive, I don't think there's any harm in experimenting with non-optimum use of breath. Just for occasional never-say-never type training.
It depends on the level of o2 depletion, but really just doing more surface swimming (more drag/effort) when tired is less risky and has the same potential benefit.
Makes zero difference on the first two and if fighting underwater is likely then it should form part of your training (eg SEALS). Personally I kinda hold my breath without thinking about it when submerged and although i may not be able to last like a pearl diver the fact I can outfight them easily renders the extra time as moot if not actually wasted
I'm with you on the water part, but in my one experience of tear gas I did find it less unpleasant the less breathing I did. Never been pepper sprayed full-on, but I have been on the wrong side of the wind when spraying it - the ability to hold my breath was useful then too (it was bear strength stuff). Note: I'm not suggesting doing two lengths of a pool underwater is great MA training, just that for intermediate to advanced levels exploring the breath can be good training.
Yeah at least make it part of your training as a whole. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KieESl3xxnA&sns=em[/ame]
Dear Fusen, Hannibal, and David Harriman, Thank you very much for the information. Dean Winchester, thank you very much for providing the informative video link. One can garner some helpful ideas from this video for some interesting pool or water workouts. The best to all, Greetings!
