What Is Hypoxic Training?

When you go swimming in your fibreglass pool, you’re doing more than simply exercising your muscles. You’re also providing training to your lungs. Basically, this is the concept when it comes to hypoxic training. You’re essentially challenging your body, and trying to make it adapt to levels of oxygen in the body, that are lower. You’ll be working on how to control your breathing properly.

For many years now, people have made use of swimming sets that incorporate hypoxic training to reduce breathing excessively. It also helps in maintaining a pattern of breathing that is consistent. Hypoxic training can especially be helpful to you if you’re interested in racing people while swimming.

You should also note that hypoxic training is ideal for swimmers who are at the intermediate level, or at an advanced level. If you’re just a beginner when it comes to swimming, then hypoxic training isn’t for you. Wait until you become better at swimming. By the time you start practising hypoxic training, you should already be comfortable with swimming and should know what the basic strokes are as well.

The Difference Between Hypoxic Training And Holding Your Breath 

Often, people think that hypoxic training is the same as holding your breath for a long period of time. When it comes to hypoxic training, people are encouraged not just to inhale, but also to exhale as well. Should someone hold their breath for long periods of time, then CO2 can end up building up in their body. This can also happen should someone go swimming across a long distance, while being under the water.

When carbon dioxide builds up in the body, this can lead to you getting a headache. You could experience blackouts as well, and may even drown. You should generally stay away from holding your breath for long periods of time, or going for long swims that are under the water.

When you do your hypoxic set, you’ll need to exhale through your nose slowly. While you do this, your head should be under the water. Do this before you take your next inhale. If you keep practising this, then you’ll be able to work on controlling your breath. You also won’t have to worry about being poisoned by excessive CO2. This can also be applied to when you normally go swimming as well.

Why Should You Add Hypoxic Training To Your Routine

Research has been done in the field that indicates that the aerobic capacity of a skimmer can be improved with the help of hypoxic training. When you start doing hypoxic sets, you can enjoy several additional benefits as well. These include:

Fixing Issues Related To Swimming Strokes

Do you have issues with your swimming strokes while trying to breathe? With Hypoxic training, you’ll be taking fewer breaths, then you can get more time to actually work on how you’re moving your body. This enables you to fix your swimming strokes.

Have Better Control While Swimming

Have you ever tried swimming in open water? If you have, then you might already know that it can be difficult to maintain your breathing pattern. When you practice hypoxic training, you can rest assured with the knowledge that you can swim better, even in rough waters.

You’ll be able to manage extra strokes before needing to inhale again. This can be helpful around parts of the water where your movements are choppy.

Boosting Your Heart Rate

When you do a hypoxic set that is short, your heart rate can increase. This way, you can boost your heart rate without needing to push yourself hard.

How Can You Add Hypoxic Training To Your Swimming Regimen?

You should base your training on your skill level. Don’t practice hypoxic sets unless you’re sure that there’s someone watching over you. If you’re practising hypoxic sets at home, then ask a family member to watch over you while you practice.

Between your breaths, there shouldn’t be a gap that exceeds fifteen seconds. Here are some exercises that you can try.

If You’re An Intermediate Level Swimmer

The first thing you should try is adding a single stroke to the usual breathing pattern that you have. If you’re someone who takes a breath with every two strokes, then you should attempt to take another breath after every third stroke.

You can also try an exercise where you place your focus on the walls. Go swimming in your pool in newcastle and when you reach the final five meters near the wall, don’t take any more breaths. The third exercise you can do involves kicking. You should kick your legs ten times, and take a single breath for this duration. So for every ten kicks that you do, you’ll take one breath.

If You’re An Advanced Level Swimmer

If you’re comfortable with swimming, then try breathing using your stroke count. You can also try to lower your breath count. To do this, go swimming fifty meters, using four breaths to complete your journey. For the next fifty meters, complete the journey using just three breaths. For the next fifty meters, use two breaths to complete your journey.

For the final fifty meters, use just one breath to swim the entire length. Choose a breath count at the start of your training and go down by a single breath count every time you do a rep.

You can also try doing underwater kicks as well. For every twenty-five kicks that you do, use just eight breaths to complete the set. You can do this exercise with the dolphin kick as well.

Conclusion

Anytime you try to do hypoxic training, you should provide yourself with time to rest between different sets. You should rest for at least twenty seconds between two sets of exercises. Ideally, you should rest for as long as you need to.

Doing hypoxic training can be beneficial to you in various ways. You’ll be better able to control yourself in the water, it can boost your heart rate, and it can also help you fix issues with your strokes. Use this guide to learn all about hypoxic training, and add it to your exercise routine today.