Hypoxic swimming

[Cuzza22297]

Just a quick question, there seems to be mixed opinions on the benefits of hypoxic lengths in swimming sessions (if there are any at all) and was wondering if anyone could let me know if the method had made a differences to their fitness and what the benefits are?

Thinking about adding them in at the end of my swim session.

Cheers

 

[Williamosaurus]

I do a lot of hypoxic swimming personally. Gets the heart beating faster and is more difficult. I can swim continuously swimming regularly but can only manage a couple lengths if I hold my breath. I alternate between hypoxic swimming and normal swimming until I recover.
It also helps you to move a lot faster in the water therfore gives your overall body a better workout.

Its definitely made me fitter and my muscles usually cramp up before I run out of breath when running whereas the contrary used to be the case. This could just be down to the natural progression of things rather than the swimming itself. I'm no expert on the advantages or disadvantages but I can't see any harm making your training harder.

Just make sure to breathe out slowly rather than hold your breath completely and if you're prone to passing out then it's probably not for you.

 

[Dickie]

As Williamosaurus said, Just make sure you do not hold your breath!

When swimming, if you inhale every 2/3 strokes you should be slowly breathing out the whole time til your next inhale. Start to increase the strokes between inhales and breathe out slower to match your strokes!

 

[Imperator13]

My PTI in training made us do a lot of Hypoxic stuff trying to get all of us to be able to do a full hypoxic length. He said it would help us with our VO2 max and on runs and bottom field. He also got us to do a few breathing exercises before we attempted the length so I’d say it will be more helpful than less helpful

 

[ERFC]

I really would recommend some hypoxic training. Get yourself a swimming weight or anything heavy enough to sink and be pushed long the floor. In the early stages of training you will spend countless sessions in the pool after having done a 2 hour IMF session in the gym.

I did see a fair few lads who were not confident swimming underwater and it just made their lives harder.

 

[Cuzza22297]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

My understanding of hypoxic training and workouts I did when doing it before was just swimming a length of breaststroke holding my breath. For example a typical session would be 100m breaststroke followed by 25m underwater. Rest 2 min then repeat x 5

After reading this though, I feel I may have got it wrong. What’s a good swimming workout (with hypoxic included)? Or is mine good?

 

[Williamosaurus]

@Cuzza22297 Yeah its good. Whether its a full length on 1 breath or breathing every 5 strokes its still classed as hypoxic.