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?
It depends upon what your goals are. If you are looking to swim fast, take a cue from the Olympians and do not bilateral breath. If you want to swim symmetrical, do it.
It would be interesting to find out if they never did bilateral breathing, or made the switch at some point. I feel like the majority of USA-S kids learn bilateral breathing, as I did. I don't think it's simply a matter of looking symmetrical, so much as developing your balance. Now I breathe 2/2, but I will often alternate which side I breathe on every 50 or 100. I will rarely swim an entire race only breathing to the left or right.
It depends upon what your goals are. If you are looking to swim fast, take a cue from the Olympians and do not bilateral breath. If you want to swim symmetrical, do it.
It would be interesting to find out if they never did bilateral breathing, or made the switch at some point. I feel like the majority of USA-S kids learn bilateral breathing, as I did. I don't think it's simply a matter of looking symmetrical, so much as developing your balance. Now I breathe 2/2, but I will often alternate which side I breathe on every 50 or 100. I will rarely swim an entire race only breathing to the left or right.
