I passed an instructor at our pool today who was saying to some kids learning freestyle that if they are right handed, they will most likely breathe on the right side, and left handed people breathe on the left side. I don't know if I agree, so I want to get your poll results:
I'm right handed and I breathe most naturally on my right side.
I'm left handed and I breathe most naturally on my left side.
My handedness and my most natural breathing side are opposite
I am truly ambidextrous and breathe with equal comfort on both sides
I am one side dominant, but have trained my self to be a comfortable bilateral breather
Former Member
Very right handed. Breathe best on left side.
Former Member
I'm somewhat ambidextrous, and I am more comfortable breathing to my right... but breathing to the left doesn't feel too bad lately.
I now note that it's a dead heat: if you add left-left and right-right, it totals 40 percent--same as the discordant left-right and right-left tally.
In terms of switching the rotation of the flip turn, I think this would be even harder to do than becoming completely comfortable with bilateral breathing.
Swimming seems like such a simple sport in many ways, but there are an awful lot of physiological quirks and complexities, eh?
In terms of switching the rotation of the flip turn, I think this would be even harder to do than becoming completely comfortable with bilateral breathing.
I agree and I think there are a couple reasons. One, most of us are used to circle swimming so we naturally turn in a way that facililtates moving to the other side of the lane. Two, we're used to taking the same number of strokes per length, hence we go into the turn with the same arm and that causes us to turn in a certain direction. When I come into a turn with the "wrong" arm it feels a little unnatural.
Interesting speculation. I agree with the circle swimming hypothesis, however, when I race with a fastskin suit on, I take fewer strokes per length (not sure if this reduction is odd or even) but still manage to flip the same way (though once I did crash into the way on the very first turn of what proved to be my all-time best 1000 swim; I have a bad habit of swimming with my eyes closed.)
This was an elite swimmer in a high level program (she made the finals in the '04 Olympic Trials in the 200 and 400 IM). The fact that her coach wanted to mess with her turn (which I agree had to feel really, really weird) as opposed to her first stroke to me means that the first dig must be very important, and either more difficult to change or with change having a greater potential negative effect than the change in the turn.
Small stuff, to be sure. But at that level, it's the small stuff that makes or breaks your swim.
Right handed, breathe right most naturally. However, I try to bi-lateral breathe most of the time in practice. I breathe in a R,R,3 strokes, L,L, 3 strokes, etc. BUT, when I get tired, or when racing over 100 yds, I default to breathing R,R,R,R,R... :-)
I think people breathe to the opposite side of their 'flexible side'. Just like Jim (Thornton) wrote earlier, most people have a more flexible, more limber side of their body. The down-side when breathing is flexed a bit more than when you don't take a breath. If you breathe R, the down-side is the L. And vice versa.
There's a stretch where you reach one arm up and over your head and reach the other up behind your back and attempt to grab your hands together. I wonder if people try this, they'll find that they breathe to the opposite side of the hand the can reach the furthest up your back. Here's a picture showing what I am poorly trying to explain:
scythe.uits.indiana.edu/.../cowface.htm
So, for example, on me I can actually grasp my hands together when my left arm is the one that's reaching up behind my back. My left side is more flexible and I breathe right. When the right arm is reaching up, I can't get my hands to touch.
Just a thought...
