After swimming around 4 years, primarily breathing to my right side I thought I'd attempt to mix in some bi-lateral breathing to my practices to help develop a more symmetrical stroke.
I'm struggling hard-core. Each time I try to breathe to my left I lose a lot of momentum and rhythm to my stroke. I breathe too late, I lift my head too much, which drops my legs, I scissor kick to maintain balance and generally become a mess. I have improved slightly but still struggle bad.
Right now I'm attempting my entire workouts with a 3 breath pattern but I'm thinking of switching it to 3 breaths on warm-ups/pull-sets/cool-downs and than breathing comfortably on main-sets/sprint sets.
Has anyone tried bi-lateral breathing after being a one sided breather for a while and if so what are some good tips to becoming more efficient at it?
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Former Member
I've always had major issues with bilateral breathing. For some reason, I've always breathed to my left side, and instead of breathing every three I developed the habit of breathing every four because of it.
At one point, I decided enough was enough and started doing the bilateral breathing. It was tough at first, but at some point it just sort of started working.
I think it helped me to slow it down and figure out when it was that I was turning my head that allowed me to breath to the left. When I got that timing figured out, it was only a matter of training my other side to do the same thing. I'm also found that counting 1,2,3, breathe helped to even things out a bit
I'd say it took about a month or so, but now I can do it without thinking. Just stick with it since it definitely gives you more versatility in the water.
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Former Member
I've always had major issues with bilateral breathing. For some reason, I've always breathed to my left side, and instead of breathing every three I developed the habit of breathing every four because of it.
At one point, I decided enough was enough and started doing the bilateral breathing. It was tough at first, but at some point it just sort of started working.
I think it helped me to slow it down and figure out when it was that I was turning my head that allowed me to breath to the left. When I got that timing figured out, it was only a matter of training my other side to do the same thing. I'm also found that counting 1,2,3, breathe helped to even things out a bit
I'd say it took about a month or so, but now I can do it without thinking. Just stick with it since it definitely gives you more versatility in the water.
