When I googled 'freestyle "breathing pattern"' today, I came across this story:
www.paloaltoonline.com/.../2000_Jun_28.SWIMMING.html
The story is inspiring. It talks about how Dara Torres, at the age of 33, set an American record in the women's 50 meter freestyle in the summer of 2000.
Beside her "old age", an interesting aspect of the story was that she changed her usual breathing pattern for the race. Instead of taking just two or three breaths the entire race, she breathed every three strokes to prevent oxygen debt at the end, because she has asthma.
This is the first time that I have ever heard of someone breaking a record or getting a really fast time by breathing frequently in a 50 meter freestyle race.
A couple of nights ago, I watched Canada's Brett Hayden win a silver medal in the 50 free at the commonwealth games. I'm not sure how many breaths he took, but he did say in the interview afterwards that he did not take any breaths in the last 20 meters. So I think he probably took 2 or 3 breaths.
This got me to wondering, "what is the ideal number of breaths to take in a 50 meter freestyle race?" I have heard that most people take 2 or 3 breaths. I usually take 3. What about you guys? Also, what is your breathing pattern for the 100 meter free?
The breathing issue remains difficult for me--if I don't think about it too much, I actually can do a 25 or 50 with fewer breaths, no problem, but as soon as the coach tells me, try to see how long you can go w/out breathing, I start needing more breaths. I might get to that wonderful place where I can do it without a breath--but that still seems pretty far away. How do you folks do it? Is it just a matter of practice or is there a technique that could help things along?
What I do notice is that if I take a quick duck underwater and breathe out before a short repeat, it seems to help a little, but I don't exactly know why. Placebo effect, maybe....
The breathing issue remains difficult for me--if I don't think about it too much, I actually can do a 25 or 50 with fewer breaths, no problem, but as soon as the coach tells me, try to see how long you can go w/out breathing, I start needing more breaths. I might get to that wonderful place where I can do it without a breath--but that still seems pretty far away. How do you folks do it? Is it just a matter of practice or is there a technique that could help things along?
What I do notice is that if I take a quick duck underwater and breathe out before a short repeat, it seems to help a little, but I don't exactly know why. Placebo effect, maybe....
