Anyone know good drills to make it easier to breathe on your crappy side?

Hi all, I'm new to this board and would like to say I'm learning a lot reading these discussions. And now feel like I have a little something to contribute. I grew up on a barrier island off the coast of Georgia and swam all my childhood and adolescent, but over the years got away from swimming. As a result my technique became pretty rusty (and endurance poor--but I'm working on that too.) There is no Master's club near enough to me to join, so when I decided to get back into swimming I hired a coach/trainer to help me with my technique. One of the first things she did was to change my breathing. The drill she gave me was so simple and was incooperated into every freestyle swim I did--swim one length breathing only on the right, swim the next length breathing only on the left. After awhile--about two weeks--breathing on my "crapy" side felt pretty natural, and thats when she had me to start rotating my breathing. I slipped into it very easily. Now I can't tell the difference. However, I am somewhat ambidextrious and that might have influenced the change also. When my daughter was in high school she swam for Americus Blue Tide, whose coach was Curt Myers, Olympic Festival coach, Pan Am Game coach and Angle Myers Martino's father. My daughter once asked him why a swimmer needed to breathe on both sides. Besides the hip rolling issue he also said that breathing only on one side, over time, made the pull on the "crapy" side weak (or vise versa, can't remember which.) Finally, when my coach and I were discussing breathing she told me that when she was swimming it "made her mad when she had to breathe on the left." The left is her "crapy" side. Being a psychologist I then had something to "teach" her. Negative emotions and thoughts can significantly impact physical performance. It has been demonstrated that when you are angry (and to extrapolate have negative thoughts) your physical strength is reduced. So, when you are swimming, don't let the fact that you "have to" breathe on your "crapy" side influence your thoughts in any way. I also refer to my "crapy" side as left, that term is descriptive and neutral. To be more specific, I sometimes refer to my left as my non-dominate side. Sorry, I didn't mean to preach. Hope your switch to rotational breathing goes easily, Lainey

The Swiss call the uncrappy side the "chocolate side"--mostly for skiing, I think, i.e., it's easier to execute turns one way or the other in most people. Here's my admittedly self-interested reply. If you're a sprinter, you probably should only breathe once or twice per length on a 50; maybe twice as often on a 100. Thus, it's not critical to be able to breathe on either side--just go with the most natural side. If you're a distance swimmer, you probably need to breathe every cycle, especially as you age. Again, breathe on your preferred side--and if you want to restrict your breathing, breathe every two cycles. Again, stick to the preferred side. There are so many other things to concentrate in improving your swimming, like streamlining, keeping your head down, etc. that I would make bilateral breathing a low priority. Why fight what your body is telling you feels so unnatural? I think it will throw your stroke off, cause neck and shoulder pains potentially, and not really make you any faster... Anyhow, that's what I think....

I recently started breathing to both sides on almost all slow freestyle sets to try to keep my right shoulder (non-breathing side) from getting sore. What I found most helpful was to first do all of my alternate side breathing while swimming with a pull-boy. Every time you take a breath your legs compensate by kicking just enough to help you roll and slightly lift your head. If you are good enough at rolling you will kick very little, but I tend to lift my head way too much when breathing. When you try to first transfer this kicking motion to your non-dominant breathing side you may have some difficulty. This is probably because you are unable to easily coordinate the kicking to turn and slightly lift your head as your breath. Using the pull-boy when you start may have 2 beneficial effects. First, if you have trouble as I do rolling well and/or lift your head too high, you will be able to concentrate on keeping your head low and rolling since your legs will be riding higher. Secondly, you will be able to get used to breathing to your non-dominant side without getting exhausted or frustrated and develop a rythm. Once you develop a rythm it is easier to start slightly kicking with the pull-boy as you would when normally breathing without it and concentrate on how you kick on you dominant side and try to transfer that feeling to the other side. Once you get it down, get rid of the pull-boy and remember to keep your head down! Bill White

Breathing to both sides is suppose to be more Benifical to the swimmer. If you breath only on one side after awhile it may screw up your shoulders. It also may make you more choppy in the water and may cause you to lift your head to high out of the water when you breath, which slows you down. I had the same problem and my coach just kept yelling at me to breath every 3 strokes. It takes awhile but if you really consentrate on breathing every 3 strokes after awhile it will become a habit and you will just do it. A drill that may be usefull is to kick 10 times on one side, then switch to the other side and do the same thing. When you switch make sure your head goes through the water. After 10 kicks on each side feels comfortable you can do the same thing but decrease the number of kicks on each side to 7,5, then 3. When you normally swim 3 kicks on each side is typical. Good Luck