I have always breathed to the right only, but recently have started to try to learn how to breathe to my left. I am finding it much more difficult than I had anticipated. The main reason:
I am out of breath the whole time.
I feel like I am not getting the same quality of breath as I do when I breathe to the right. My breathing feels short and choppy. I also feel like I am lifting my head to breathe instead of breathing with my body roll.
Worse still, I am now dropping my right elbow and I am so out of breath the whole time, I can hardly concentrate on trying to keep it up.
On the positive side, my left elbow position has improved considerably (which is why I started down this road in the first place) and my kick is being forced to improve. (I have always had a crossover kick and for some reason or other when I breathe to my left, I don't do it).
Two weeks into the change now and it is definitely feeling more natural, however, I was hoping others who have tried this could give me some advice on what to watch out for and maybe give me some tips on how to make it feel more natural.
One of the benefits you can get from the single arm drill is increasing your comfort with bilateral breathing, so I would recommend practicing that drill without the snorkel.
I tried it without the snorkel and, you are right: preferable not to use the snorkel for that drill. I also tried your other drills and found the side kick drill and the hyper kick drill very demanding on the legs. I could barely keep the hyper kick drill up for more than 10 meters and my head was never fully out of the water.
Had a breakthough with my breathing today and thought I would report on it as it might be of benefit to others who are trying the same thing.
Today was a dream practice. Just about everything went right. Breathing to the left just clicked. It was smooth, almost effortless and I didn't feel out of breath at all. At the first push off on my warm up, I took two breaths to the right and told myself that I all I had to do was to transfer that same rhythm to the other side and it would all be okay. So I did and it was. Perhaps thinking about it in terms of rhythm helped because rhythym is intricately tied to timing and it was my timing that was out. So what did I do differently? I waited until my arm was almost at full extenstion before I took a breath. Previously, I had been breathing too early. Probably only a fraction of a second but it was enough to put my rhythm out, make me lift my head and drop my hips and cause to be breathless in the space of 50 meters.
I can't stress how big a difference it made. Not only did it feel effortless, but I was making the same intervals only two days ago I was missing by a second and a half. And I felt strong: like I was getting a good purchase on the water. My legs weren't crossing over and I felt like I was getting propulsion from them and they felt like they were acting as a counterweight to my upper body, rather than just trailing behind aimlessly and crossing over one another every now and then. I remember reading somewhere on this forum that you 'should reach to breathe' and that stuck with me and it was what I kept thinking about today. For some reason or other, I attribute that comment to Knelson, but I may be wrong.
Anyway, it turns out that by breathing slightly later, my body was 'longer' in the water and was more on its side, thus making it easier to just rotate my head ever so slightly to breathe.
Very excited to get back into the water tomorrow morning.
One of the benefits you can get from the single arm drill is increasing your comfort with bilateral breathing, so I would recommend practicing that drill without the snorkel.
I tried it without the snorkel and, you are right: preferable not to use the snorkel for that drill. I also tried your other drills and found the side kick drill and the hyper kick drill very demanding on the legs. I could barely keep the hyper kick drill up for more than 10 meters and my head was never fully out of the water.
Had a breakthough with my breathing today and thought I would report on it as it might be of benefit to others who are trying the same thing.
Today was a dream practice. Just about everything went right. Breathing to the left just clicked. It was smooth, almost effortless and I didn't feel out of breath at all. At the first push off on my warm up, I took two breaths to the right and told myself that I all I had to do was to transfer that same rhythm to the other side and it would all be okay. So I did and it was. Perhaps thinking about it in terms of rhythm helped because rhythym is intricately tied to timing and it was my timing that was out. So what did I do differently? I waited until my arm was almost at full extenstion before I took a breath. Previously, I had been breathing too early. Probably only a fraction of a second but it was enough to put my rhythm out, make me lift my head and drop my hips and cause to be breathless in the space of 50 meters.
I can't stress how big a difference it made. Not only did it feel effortless, but I was making the same intervals only two days ago I was missing by a second and a half. And I felt strong: like I was getting a good purchase on the water. My legs weren't crossing over and I felt like I was getting propulsion from them and they felt like they were acting as a counterweight to my upper body, rather than just trailing behind aimlessly and crossing over one another every now and then. I remember reading somewhere on this forum that you 'should reach to breathe' and that stuck with me and it was what I kept thinking about today. For some reason or other, I attribute that comment to Knelson, but I may be wrong.
Anyway, it turns out that by breathing slightly later, my body was 'longer' in the water and was more on its side, thus making it easier to just rotate my head ever so slightly to breathe.
Very excited to get back into the water tomorrow morning.
