This week, we’re focusing on unlocking your breathing, which is holding back your swimming progress. In my previous email, I mentioned exercise Fred did to overcome that dreaded first length… with just one exercise.

For Fred, the priority was learning how to empty his lungs—to exhale in the water.

Outside of the water, we do this automatically. When we inhale, our lungs fill with air and become pressurized compared to the surrounding air. Nature hates this type of imbalance, and the pressurized air moves toward areas of lower pressure (it’s the same principle as the wind). As soon as we relax, the air exits. But in water, it doesn’t work this way.

Water pressure is much higher than air pressure. So, once your lungs are full and your mouth is underwater, the pressure in your lungs is lower than the water pressure. The air CANNOT come out on its own. Seconds pass, and the urge to breathe grows more intense—anxiety-inducing even. You know that feeling?

Did you know that the urge to breathe isn’t actually caused by a lack of oxygen?

In fact, if you don’t expel air, the level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in your lungs increases, triggering the need to breathe. The only way to get rid of it is to push the air out of your lungs—to exhale. HARD.

Or at least hard enough to overcome the water pressure. It’s simple: if you’re making bubbles, you’re doing it right.

The bad news is that there are no muscles specifically dedicated to exhaling. Inhaling is managed by the diaphragm, but exhaling happens naturally by relaxing the diaphragm—when you’re not in the water. As you try to make bubbles in the water, your brain will gradually learn to contract other muscles to achieve the desired effect. This takes a bit of time for the neural connections and coordination to develop.

Blowing hard enough to make bubbles is a good first step, but it’s not enough to swim long distances. You also need to be able to exhale for a LONG time.

Wait a minute.

Blowing hard or blowing long?

It’s paradoxical, but you need to exhale hard enough to release the air and expel CO2, but not so hard that you lose all the oxygen in your lungs, as you need it to keep moving. And here’s the magic exercise:

Only ONE Exercise

Start by pushing off the wall, swimming as far as possible while keeping your head in the water and exhaling continuously without stopping.

When you lift your head to breathe, return to the nearest wall and repeat.

Make small bubbles—tiny bubbles. The smallest bubbles you can.

The better you control your exhalation, the farther you’ll swim in one go. That’s a sign of progress.

Well done.

If you start to plateau, try linking another long exhalation right after you inhale. Then another. Let me know how it goes!

A Bonus Exercise You Can Do Right Now

I almost forgot—the bonus exercise.

You can do this exercise on your chair, right where you’re reading this.

Take 2–3 deep breaths in and out, then take one big breath in. Exhale continuously without stopping. See how long you can keep going.

If you exhale for less than 20 seconds, you’re not fully relaxed. If you can go beyond 40 seconds, you’re in a relaxed state AND have sufficient control over your exhalation. With a bit of practice, it’s possible to reach a full minute.

If you can exhale for 30 seconds while sitting, how far do you think you can swim while doing the same thing in the water?

Some variations to try

There are several variations of this exercise. Try experimenting with different ways of exhaling and swimming. The best mindset for progress is to keep testing, making small adjustments each time. If you’re short on ideas, you can find the complete set of exercises in the dedicated program available on this page: https://zuchiatti.fr/cant-breath-while-swimming/. These are the same exercises I give to swimmers in Fred’s situation.

As for Fred, he’s successfully moved past this first stage of breathing. I’ll talk more about it tomorrow, especially Step 0, which I’ve only briefly mentioned.

See you soon,

I’m going to give you the steps to help you breathe better and become an even better swimmer. More importantly, I’ll provide you with exercises specifically targeting the step that applies to YOU. By the end of the week, you’ll know how to progress and stop running out of air.

Fred is a new triathlete who came to the club where I coach daily about a year ago. When we first spoke, he shared a bad experience that left him feeling ashamed and guilty. That’s the reason he came to see me.

Fred is part of a running group, several members of which had already completed triathlons. When they decided to do a team race of five, they naturally thought of Fred, even though he didn’t train in swimming.

The race started with a 400m swim, followed by 20km of cycling, and finishing with a 3km run. For this race, the whole team had to stay together—a criterion that significantly shaped Fred’s experience.

The 400m swim didn’t seem intimidating to Fred, who thought he could manage it, especially in a pool where the water was clear and the bottom visible. He figured that once the swim was behind him, he could help the others since running was his strength and cycling suited him well too.

On race day, Fred discovered that the pool was 50m long, longer than he had anticipated. As the race began, Fred and his friends organized themselves to move as quickly as possible—the fastest swimmers took the lead to break the water, Fred stayed behind to draft, and the other two positioned themselves on either side.

Before even finishing the first length, the nightmare began. Fifty meters is a long way when you’re not used to swimming. Fred couldn’t catch his breath, was short of air, and his friends had to stop and wait for him. He hadn’t expected to swim at the same pace as them, but his difficulties exceeded what he had imagined. Anxiety crept in.

His friends, more experienced, reorganized. The strongest swimmers moved behind Fred to push him occasionally, while the other two stayed in front to encourage him. And it worked—for a while.

Despite the difficulties, Fred kept pushing forward. His friends gave him momentum by pushing his feet, but nothing helped. His breathing was the real issue. So, he switched to breaststroke, then floated on his back to try and catch his breath. His friends kept helping him along, but Fred was barely swimming anymore. When the anxiety subsided, shame took over. Fred felt embarrassed for not being able to swim on his own and guilty for holding his team back as they were overtaken several times.

After what felt like endless minutes, they finally finished the 400m swim. It was time for the bike portion, but Fred’s ordeal wasn’t over.

Although he had dreaded the swim, he realized it had completely drained him. He needed a long time to recover his breath and composure, which impacted the start of the cycling portion. His friends kept waiting for him. Eventually, he regained some ease with his breathing, but it was tough. And then came the run.

Another surprise. This time, his legs gave out. While he didn’t need to be pushed to keep going, his friends had to adapt to his pace and encourage him. Fred had no energy left in his legs—no power at all.

Needless to say, when Fred shared this story with me, I could see on his face how much it had affected him. That’s why he decided to come see me. Some of his friends already swam in my groups and had suggested he join. Fred seemed determined to overcome these difficulties to help his friends in a future race. No more shame or guilt.

3 (+1) Steps to Become a Better Swimmer and Feel Comfortable in the Water

Fred needed the first step. I’ll talk tomorrow about the exercises I gave Fred that helped him, but for today, let’s take a step back.

I consider there to be three steps that allow you to:

1. Swim longer,
2. Move faster, and finally
3. Swim very fast depending on the target distance.

For each step, there’s a SKILL to learn that doesn’t come naturally when your face is submerged in water. The better you master this skill, the more at ease you’ll feel.

To swim longer, you need to be able to get air. Paradoxically, this means you first need to learn how to let air out of your lungs. You need to know how to EXHALE in the water. It’s not as easy as it seems, even though it’s simple.

To swim faster, you need to push harder and harder against the water with EACH stroke. And to do this, you use your exhalation by blowing out more FORCEFULLY.

Finally, if you’re aiming for a high speed over a given distance, you’ll need to find the right strategy for exhaling and inhaling. This choice is individual and can only be discovered, not taught. We’ll discuss this another day if you’re interested.

Fred was at step 1. His goal was to be able to swim long distances without getting excessively out of breath. Today, he has passed this step. I gave him the type of exercises included in the program I offer on this page: https://zuchiatti.fr/cant-breath-while-swimming/, and it didn’t take him long to feel more comfortable and string together lengths. His confidence grew, and he is no longer worried about the swimming portion of races—nor does he need to be pushed to finish.

The Additional Step

I mentioned an extra step in terms of breathing: Step 0.

To be precise, this isn’t a step for better breathing, but one that will allow you to move through the water with less effort. This means using less energy and getting less out of breath.

I call it Step 0 because it can come before working on exhalation. Most of the exercises in this step are done WITHOUT BREATHING. This may seem surprising, but you’ll understand why when we cover this step. For now, it’s not the most important step for you if your goal is to enjoy swimming more and feel more relaxed in the water.

Tomorrow, I’ll explain why exhaling is the key to breathing better. We all think we know how to do it, but it’s completely different in the water. The physical context is not the same. In the meantime, if you want to get ahead, feel free to check out the program I recommended to Fred.

See you soon,