Fly breathing

I hear that you should not breathe every stroke in fly because it causes you to become vertical for more time during your swim, but one thing that I do not understand is that when I swim fly and come up for a breath everystroke, not only does it seem easier for me, but I take less strokes per lap, and I go faster. Any thoughts or ideas?? That's odd though, there's probably some slight glitches with your stroke. It may be that when you breathe, you actually perform the undulation better maybe? Because normally, you shouldn't be faster breathing every stroke compare to every other stroke. Now that said, in my case when race fit, there's only a .3sec delta between my 50fly (SCM) breathing only 3 or 4 times in the whole 50, and a 50fly breathing every stroke (30.3 vs 30.6). Never really tested breathing every other with breathing every stroke, I'd expect this difference to be even smaller. That's probably why several fly specialists (100/200) choose to breathe every stroke. The increase in O2 intake compensates for the loss in speed. I might also add that my stroke technique is built on a continuous body undulation including a head movement that goes up and down. That's because in training, I always breathe every stroke, and I do perform speciality sets at my full stroke (along with breaststrokers as I can hardly match their speed on a sets of 100m for instance). Therefore even when I don't breathe, I still need to say 'Yes' a bit whilst swimming. My head must move up and down a bit to ease the undulation, regardless of if I'm breathing or not. This could greatly help you to, ie to raise your head as if you wanted to see the surface, even when you know you won't be taking a puff. Finally, I certainly disagree with the idea than breathing (alone) could bring your fly down or vertical or would cause your hips to drop in a significant way. All this can be avoid by ensureing that A) you breathe by raising your head (only) above the water, not the entire upper body (see Phelps swimming the fly) and that B) you breathe early enough into the cycle (to avoid having Head, Arms, and Feet outside the water all in the same time) and that C) this breath only lasts for a "blink of the eye". This is easier done by making sure you carefully exhale (in Fly, you definitely can't afford to exhale outside the water, no time for being so sloppy). The bottom line is, head should pop up very shortly prior second kick, and must come back in the water prior the arms and prior first kick.

I hear that you should not breathe every stroke in fly because it causes you to become vertical for more time during your swim, but one thing that I do not understand is that when I swim fly and come up for a breath everystroke, not only does it seem easier for me, but I take less strokes per lap, and I go faster. Any thoughts or ideas?? That's odd though, there's probably some slight glitches with your stroke. It may be that when you breathe, you actually perform the undulation better maybe? Because normally, you shouldn't be faster breathing every stroke compare to every other stroke. Now that said, in my case when race fit, there's only a .3sec delta between my 50fly (SCM) breathing only 3 or 4 times in the whole 50, and a 50fly breathing every stroke (30.3 vs 30.6). Never really tested breathing every other with breathing every stroke, I'd expect this difference to be even smaller. That's probably why several fly specialists (100/200) choose to breathe every stroke. The increase in O2 intake compensates for the loss in speed. I might also add that my stroke technique is built on a continuous body undulation including a head movement that goes up and down. That's because in training, I always breathe every stroke, and I do perform speciality sets at my full stroke (along with breaststrokers as I can hardly match their speed on a sets of 100m for instance). Therefore even when I don't breathe, I still need to say 'Yes' a bit whilst swimming. My head must move up and down a bit to ease the undulation, regardless of if I'm breathing or not. This could greatly help you to, ie to raise your head as if you wanted to see the surface, even when you know you won't be taking a puff. Finally, I certainly disagree with the idea than breathing (alone) could bring your fly down or vertical or would cause your hips to drop in a significant way. All this can be avoid by ensureing that A) you breathe by raising your head (only) above the water, not the entire upper body (see Phelps swimming the fly) and that B) you breathe early enough into the cycle (to avoid having Head, Arms, and Feet outside the water all in the same time) and that C) this breath only lasts for a "blink of the eye". This is easier done by making sure you carefully exhale (in Fly, you definitely can't afford to exhale outside the water, no time for being so sloppy). The bottom line is, head should pop up very shortly prior second kick, and must come back in the water prior the arms and prior first kick.