Every sport is unique. They each have their own rules, point systems and terrains which mark their individuality from one another. Each athlete, no matter their sport, faces different daily struggles and triumphs.
Swimmers have a particularly tricky time conveying the depth of our sport to people, however. A large part of this misunderstanding comes from our sport’s main defining feature: it takes place underwater. I can’t stress this enough; there are a lot of things that people simply don’t realize about underwater sports.
For starters, we do not have gills. Most of us actually have pretty average lung capacities. Somehow, though, breathing while submerged in water is something that becomes pretty natural to us. Speaking as a distance swimmer, you get into a certain rhythm while pushing through lap after lap. Unless it’s a particularly exhausting set, or one that has a hypoxic component, breathing isn’t typically one of my worries. Don’t get me wrong- swimming is cardio and it certainly gets you out of breath. But years of experience can make it so that turning your head from one side to another becomes so routine it feels like second nature.
There is an ongoing joke in the swimmer community about how we always have water in our ears –…
