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?
What happens if you breathe only to your weak side? Do you struggle in that case, too? If so, maybe you should try always breathing toward the same side of the pool so that you are alternating your breathing side every length. That will help you to improve your technique on your weak side and after a while you'll probably be able to breathe bilaterally better.
If I only breathe to my left I still struggle but it's feeling a lot better since I've started practicing it, I used to only breathe on my right for a whole workout so this is a pretty big step.
Today I did my warm-up with a 3/3 pattern, my main-set I breathed only on my right side, and for my cool-down I tried breathing only on my weak side (left). This seemed to be a good mix and my shoulders feel pretty good as well so I'm going to keep this pattern up for a while and see how I feel in a few weeks.
What happens if you breathe only to your weak side? Do you struggle in that case, too? If so, maybe you should try always breathing toward the same side of the pool so that you are alternating your breathing side every length. That will help you to improve your technique on your weak side and after a while you'll probably be able to breathe bilaterally better.
That's exactly what I do, because I prefer more air than I get bilateral breathing, and I also need to change it up for my neck and shoulders. Besides, I prefer the view of one side of the pool over the other! :bump:
What happens if you breathe only to your weak side? Do you struggle in that case, too? If so, maybe you should try always breathing toward the same side of the pool so that you are alternating your breathing side every length. That will help you to improve your technique on your weak side and after a while you'll probably be able to breathe bilaterally better.
