The ONE exercise I use to help you master your breathing (+1 bonus you can do right now)

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,