Breathing

Originally posted by SWinkleblech I was taught in High School to breathe every three strokes so that you are breathing on both sides. One thing that I notice is that no one seems to swim this way, not even at the Olympics. Is there any advantage to breathing every three strokes or should you be breathing to only one side? There is an advantage to be able to breath to either side, e.g. your competitor may be swimming to your right or left. Breathing to both sides should also develop a more symetric stroke, but many of the worlds fastest swimmers swim with an asymetric "lope". BUT, for anything longer than a sprint the amount of energy output you can produce is a direct function of the amount of oxygen you breath and process so you want to breath as much as possible without negatively impacting your stroke efficiency. Breathing every three strokes in races isn't generally a good idea due to the lowered oxygen intake. Breathing every three strokes during slower sets in workouts may be a good drill if you have problems with bilateral breathing. Or so I understand from my reading :)

I also breathe to my left, and I think I might be the only one on the team that does this. I still can not for the life of me breathe to the right. I have tried, and even been told to but just don't bother. I did notice that while most of the Olympic swimmers breathed on one side, but they could on both as I noticed Thorpe would watch the side that was closest to him.

In practice I'll breath every 3 most of the time. I'll switch to every 2 on distance sets. But when I breath every 2 I make sure I always breath facing the same wall. That way I'm bilateral breathing by 25s or 50s (LC). The main reason I do that though is because of my shoulders. If I breath to only one side that shoulder ends up hurting more than the other. Also off turns I alternate which arm I pull with first, again because of shouldes problems (tendenitious).

I had to actually think about when I breathe. I realized that I breathe to both sides, sometimes 4 strokes, sometimes 3, sometimes 2.... I guess I take a breath when I need one. I do find that I go faster when I breathe every two strokes - to my right. My "chocolate" side is left arm out, right arm up. When I don't get enough oxygen, my arms feel dead and lifeless and weight 3/4 ton each.

Oops, i meant decreased my time, shaved off.

I usually don't feel like I am running out of air when I swim using every three strokes. My arms and legs start to feel tired before I feel I am running out of air. So either I am that slow that the breathing doesn't bother me or playing the trumpet when I was growing up has given me some mighty lungs. My Y will finally open back up this weekend (after being closed for three weeks) and I will be able to get back into the pool again on Monday. I think I will experiment with the every 2 strokes and see what happens.

Originally posted by SWinkleblech I usually don't feel like I am running out of air when I swim using every three strokes. My arms and legs start to feel tired before I feel I am running out of air. So either I am that slow that the breathing doesn't bother me or playing the trumpet when I was growing up has given me some mighty lungs. It looks like I have to correct myself :) There are two aspects of delivering oxygen to your muscles: 1) getting oxygen into the blood, 2) delivering oxygen from your blood to your muscle fibers. It is possible to have a high capacity for absorbing oxygen into the blood but poor capacity for delivering it to specific muscle fibers. A well trained runner who doesn't swim regularly might have excellent ability to take in oxygen but poor capilarization of the muscles used in swimming with the result that breathing will not be the limiting factor in their ability to deliver oxygen to the muscles. Actually, 2) would probably be better stated as ability of the muscles to utilize the oxygen available in the blood supply. Now, to try to wiggle out of my brash simplification. An earlier poster commented that elite swimmers need to breath more often because they do long underwater pullouts. But this can be turned around to say they are able to do long underwater pullouts because they breath more often. So, ask yourself, why don't you do longer pullouts? If the answer is that it leaves you out of breath then you might benefit from breathing more often before and after the turn. When you say "I don't usually feel out of breath when I swim using every three strokes." are you referring to training or racing? Back in my running days I can remember running with one training partner who never really breathed hard but who couldn't run faster due to muscle fatigue, I am pretty sure that if they had elevated their breathing they could have run faster before suffering muscle fatigue. There is a possibility that your perception that you don't need more air even though your muscles are fatiguing is incorrect and that if you elevated your breathing you would find it delayed your muscle fatigue. I also found that my muscles fatigued less if I elevated my breathing before I arrived at a hill rather than waiting until my breathing naturally elevated. Likewise, you might find that if you purposely elevated your breathing early in your race you might delay your muscle fatigue. Kind of like the way that by the time you feel thirsty it is too late to stay optimally hydrated, your autonomic adjustments to breath control may not be optimal. Anyway, I oversimplified and I admit it.

I experimented today, and found that breathing the other way (to the right) is not hard for me and even decreased my tiem by almost 2 seconds!!! Anyone have any idea why?

Originally posted by spintwo I experimented today, and found that breathing the other way (to the right) is not hard for me and even decreased my tiem by almost 2 seconds!!! Anyone have any idea why? My guess would be that you do something breathing to the right that causes you to correct or improve your stroke in some way.

Originally posted by spintwo I experimented today, and found that breathing the other way (to the right) is not hard for me and even decreased my tiem by almost 2 seconds!!! Anyone have any idea why? It's not uncommon for swimmers to find that their stroke improves when they breathe on their "wrong" side. When they breathe on their "right" side, they are frequently invoking years (maybe even decades) of bad muscle memories. But when they switch to their "wrong" side, they are able to start with a clean slate.