This month, Salim tackles the one thing the majority adult swimmers worry about before they've even started a stroke: breathing.

It's the first topic most adults raise in a swimming lesson, and it can quietly hold back your progress for years. If you're a confident runner, cyclist or triathlete who runs out of puff after two lengths, or a nervous beginner who holds their breath and hopes for the best, this episode is for you. Salim busts the myths and explains how to swim front crawl with calm, efficient breathing.

In this Coach's Corner, Salim covers:

• Why super-fit runners, triathletes and Ironmen so often struggle in the pool, and the two questions Salim asks them first
• The "hoarding air" problem: why holding your breath leads to a build-up of carbon dioxide, a racing heart and early exhaustion
• Why breathing every two strokes is the default for top swimmers
• Why bilateral breathing is a great training skill but a poor default setting
• How to breathe like you do in any other activity
• How to get started
• A simple three-length breathing drill to build confidence on both sides

Coaching tip of the episode

Don't hoard air. Breathe out slowly and steadily while your face is in the water, and take in only a partial breath when you turn to breathe. Make the controlled exhale your secret weapon, and when you feel tired, glide a little longer and extend your out-breath rather than rushing your stroke.

Be a part of Coach's Corner. Here's how to get in touch:

• Email us: inatthedeependpod@gmail.com
• Use the get in touch form HERE — https://inatthedeepend.transistor.fm/be-a-part-of-the-show
• Send us a voice message HERE — https://www.speakpipe.com/InAtTheDeepEnd

Produced by The Good Studio — thegoodstudio.co.uk

Ten years ago, Lise Thorne turned up to her first swimming lesson able to do exactly one stroke, and desperate to avoid the other. Since then she's built Walking This Way into a community of 100,000 followers by talking honestly about midlife, reinvention and everything the brochures leave out, but front crawl was the one thing she'd quietly dodged for her entire adult life.

In this episode of In At The Deep End, host and swim coach Salim Ahmed sits down with Lise to work out what changed: how she went from panicking halfway round a 750m lake loop to swimming Coniston's five and a half miles, and why she's now training for a 70km relay across Lake Geneva.

Together, Salim and Lise explore:

• The first lesson that nearly ended in a panicked swim back to shore
• Why breaststroke feels safe but front crawl is actually the more efficient, lower-impact stroke
• How learning to breathe properly unlocked a stroke she'd avoided her whole adult life
• The mental leap from one triathlon in a borrowed wetsuit to a 5.5-mile lake swim
• Why speed and sprint training matter more, not less, as we get older
• How swimming became a physical route through issues that had nothing to do with the water
• Letting go of the fear of "holding the group back", in the pool and in life

This is a conversation about learning to swim as an adult, yes, but it's really about what happens when you finally stop avoiding the thing that scares you.

Swim with Salim

• SwimLab — Learn to swim with Salim
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Be a part of the show: Here's how to get in touch...

• Email us: inatthedeependpod@gmail.com
• Use the get in touch form HERE - https://inatthedeepend.transistor.fm/be-a-part-of-the-show
• Send us a voice message HERE- https://www.speakpipe.com/InAtTheDeepEnd

Produced by The Good Studio - thegoodstudio.co.uk

This is the first ever Coach's Corner, a brand new monthly series from In at the Deep End.

Between main episodes, Salim will take a deep dive into one coaching topic at a time, answering the questions you send in and sharing tips, techniques and advice picked up across 20 years of swim coaching. And you can help choose the topics, just email in or leave a voice message about what you struggle with, what you want to improve, or what's holding you back, and Salim could cover it in a future episode.

To kick things off, this episode is all about connection, the thing most swim coaches skip straight past. Fear of open water doesn't care how fit or experienced you are. It's hit Olympic swimmers, seasoned triathletes mid-race, and pool swimmers who feel completely at home in a lane but freeze the moment they're in a lake or the sea. Salim breaks down why building a genuine connection with the water, before you even think about technique, is the real foundation of confident, efficient swimming.

In this Coach's Corner, Salim covers:

• His five-step process for building water confidence
• Why coaching often has nothing to do with swimming at all
• What Vicki Anstey had to overcome before she could even begin training for her record-breaking Pacific row
• Why "the push and glide" is the fastest part of any length, and how top Olympians already use it
• The moment Joe Wicks, one of the fittest men in the country, panicked fifty metres into an open water swim, and how connection work turned that around
• The three pieces of kit Salim recommends once you're ready to start working on propulsion
• Why Salim describes swimming as a performance art rather than a sport, built on doing less to get more

Coaching tip of the episode:
Before you touch technique, get connected. Stand on the poolside or the water's edge and treat the water as your friend, not an obstacle. Calm heart rate and comfort in the water aren't a nice-to-have, they're the foundation everything else is built on.

Coming up in future episodes:

• The perfect plod: finding your natural swimming rhythm
• Swimming like Katie Ledecki
• Breathing and building an adaptable repertoire
• The kick: two-beat, four-beat, six-beat, and fixing "sinky legs"
• The need for speed, and staying fast as you get older

Be a part of Coach's Corner. Here's how to get in touch:

• Email us: inatthedeependpod@gmail.com
• Use the get in touch form HERE — https://inatthedeepend.transistor.fm/be-a-part-of-the-show
• Send us a voice message HERE — https://www.speakpipe.com/InAtTheDeepEnd

Produced by The Good Studio — thegoodstudio.co.uk