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
I wasn't much of a bi-lateral breather until the last few years. I would force myself to swim an entire practice breathing to the left, then the next practice would do half and half to see how things compared, then the next practice all left again. During those "left only" practices, I found it easiest to try and mimic what I was doing on the right side with the left side.
Donna, As for the not swimming in a straight line, I think you're overcompensating with your right arm when you're breathing. You're either bringing it too far in on the catch or not catching close enough to your body. Next time you try breathing to your left, watch carefully where your arms go when they come in and where they are when they pass under you. Then try to notice the same thing for when you breathe. There may be something there...
I wasn't much of a bi-lateral breather until the last few years. I would force myself to swim an entire practice breathing to the left, then the next practice would do half and half to see how things compared, then the next practice all left again. During those "left only" practices, I found it easiest to try and mimic what I was doing on the right side with the left side.
Donna, As for the not swimming in a straight line, I think you're overcompensating with your right arm when you're breathing. You're either bringing it too far in on the catch or not catching close enough to your body. Next time you try breathing to your left, watch carefully where your arms go when they come in and where they are when they pass under you. Then try to notice the same thing for when you breathe. There may be something there...
