My triathlon training was much more into running and less into swimming (I doubt I could have swum 7500 yards in a week if I did nothing else but swim), but overall it was similar.tofu wrote:The only exercise that helps my playing is if I swim before playing. It seems to really allow me to increase the capacity by 25% and the quickness of taking the air in. I have my theories as to why, but I'm not really certain why it has such a beneficial effect.
Where do you find time to practice tuba? All those training activities pretty much eliminated any face time on the instrument, and my tuba playing stagnated during that period.
Swimming requires the same breathing motion as playing the tuba. You have to maintain a positive pressure on your nasal and oral cavities when underwater to prevent ingesting water, and you also have to bleed off all your air by the next breath to avoid having to blow out the bad stuff before taking in the new stuff. And given that the mouth is only above water for a fraction of a second, you have to pull all the air in a hurry.
It also trains you to forget about the mechanics of breathing and just breathe. I spent all my time thinking about stroke technique and didn't have anything left over for worrying about breathing.
I enjoyed my swim training for the most part. I didn't enjoy the sprint competitiveness of master's swim programs--my interest was in long-distance aerobic swimming. I didn't enjoy getting kicked in the face, which happened frequently in the pool. I didn't enjoy my many unsuccessful attempts at learning to make smooth flip turns. And, most of all, I didn't enjoy how much the chlorine irritated my sinuses. My favorite training swims were in the open water of a lake.
But despite my far greater amount of, um, flotation, I think my long-distance swimming days are behind me.
Rick "who has been known to get motion sickness from swimming" Denney
In both instances riding the bike takes only 20% more time than driving or the train - this doesn't count shower time however.
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