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Comment by maaaats | Hacker News Reader

In the article it's stipulated it's because of gravity. But it's also mentioned in passing that swimmers hold their breath. I wonder, is there any effect in being able to hold your breath for long when it comes to cardio? As in, I can hold my breath for 4:58, does that offer me any advantage?

Or what about training with a bigger lack of oxygen, as in waiting longer between strokes to breathe or holding your breath while running, does it do any good?

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I found that sentence odd... Swimmers do not really hold their breaths often. Some training involves breath holding, and sprinters will hold their breath, but the majority of training and all distance swimming involves relatively normal breathing - the body exhausts itself quickly when there is no oxygen coming in to the system. I do masters swimming after starting to swim recreationally in college, and the first thing you learn to conserve energy is to breath normally and not hold your breath.

Swimmers hold their breath constantly from turns to different patterns depending on the stroke. Also in freestyle it's common to breath in through your mouth and exhale through your nose which isn't like running which is all mouth breathing.

Breath control drills (i.e. "breathe once this lap" or "breathe every fourth stroke") are also standard for competitive swimmers.

This study looked at top competitive athletes, who might be pursuing a different strategy than masters swimmers.

Erm, I think it really depends on the intensity of the run. I typically breathe in through my nose and out my mouth when running at a lower intensity.

Distance swimmers don't really hold their breath, but sprinters certainly do. I was a state champion sprinter, and when I would swim the 50 freestyle I only breathed once, usually a few strokes after the turn. For the 100 freestyle it was one breath per lap, and this is crucial because in a sprint anytime you breathe you are slowing yourself down.

What kind of swimmers? Lap swimmers don't hold their breath much, freedivers do it all the time.

Since this discussion is in the context of lap swimmers...

To be fair to taneq, the reason I asked is because I used to freedive so used to holding my breath for long, and wonder if that skill yield any kind of advantage.

Freestyle should have continuous outflow while head is in the water so that at breath time, you can get a lung full. This becomes more important the longer the event (eg miles) due to accumulated stress and lactic acidosis due to not breathing properly. That is, you should breath as close to running as possible.

Yes, I agree, that's why I also asked in the context of a person actively training in holding their breath. Could it help with cardio?

Also, what's the significance of the muscle groups involved? Swimming is much more upper-body intense than the lower-body intense exercise of running. One would think the heart is much more 'exercised' trying to keep large leg muscles oxygenated compared with smaller upper-body muscles.

Are you Guybrush Threepwood?

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