I have been a right side breather for over 50 years. Last year, I tried for a full year to breathe on the left but encountered a lot of problems and I am a patient person when learning something new/different.
Here are the problems:When I breathe on the left: I get a headache quickly; also, I get extremely dizzy, and finally, I start seeing spots optically. I also don't swim straight which I am famous for doing and that is because my non-breathing arm is probably traveling to the left.
I can breathe on the left for about 10 to 20 strokes before these problems start occurring. Today, after I came home from swim training, I started thinking about why all this is. The one thing I did do was, as I was sitting, was I turned my head to the right and my chin goes beyond my shoulder. I tried this to the left and it wasn't even close to my shoulder. So now I am thinking that muscles/tendons in my neck are not lengthened and flexible when turning it to the left thereby the problems I may be encountering when I try to breathe to the left.
So, if anyone has any ideas, or knows of any exercises I could implement to get my neck to turn to the left, let me know. I truly don't think that swimming 19 miles breathing only to the right is the way to go; it may even cause me to abort the swim.
Breathing to the left is almost impossible because once my vision starts to go, I get nauseaous. Ideas?
Donna
Parents
Former Member
I´ve given up. It is too late to learn something new. My head doesn´t turn enough to the right and I also mess up my forearm push when trying to breathe on that side. What I do is rotate as if I were going to breathe on the right side, faking it, but not opening my mouth or trying to really breathe. I just look to the right but continue breathing always on the left. The rotating move of the body to the right side is a learned process, doesn´t come naturally but I am learning to make it more and more automatic. I swim distances without having any problems in the neck or shoulder area. When first coming back into the swimming year, or after a two or more week break in training, I get numb hands when swimming longer than 400 meters. However that goes away pretty soon, and it is the brachial plexus being stretched as I reach long with my arms. Nothing to do with my head or neck or shoulders. Take care, billy fanstone
I´ve given up. It is too late to learn something new. My head doesn´t turn enough to the right and I also mess up my forearm push when trying to breathe on that side. What I do is rotate as if I were going to breathe on the right side, faking it, but not opening my mouth or trying to really breathe. I just look to the right but continue breathing always on the left. The rotating move of the body to the right side is a learned process, doesn´t come naturally but I am learning to make it more and more automatic. I swim distances without having any problems in the neck or shoulder area. When first coming back into the swimming year, or after a two or more week break in training, I get numb hands when swimming longer than 400 meters. However that goes away pretty soon, and it is the brachial plexus being stretched as I reach long with my arms. Nothing to do with my head or neck or shoulders. Take care, billy fanstone
