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
You're definately not alone in this. I've been working on it too, primarily because my strokes feel uneven from side to side, and I think breathing to both sides equally might help me get things balanced out.
If I start out trying to breathe to my awkward side, I get panicky, dizzy and nauseous. I find that if I work up to a full stroke through drills, I do much better both breathing to my awkward side and bilaterally. I do the following drills. I start with kick set laying on my weak side, lower arm extended with my head neutral (mostly under water). Turning my head up to grab a breath feels much more natural. Then I do an exaggerated catch-up drill, breathing every stroke on both sides. Then I'll swim just breathing to my awkward side. And finally I'll do a set breathing bilaterally. I guess I'm taking away the stroke to start, and then adding it back in bit by bit. I feel more in control and by the end, breathing to my weak side seems a little more natural.
I have no idea what swimming drills in an ocean is like (I'm trying to image trying to get comfortable this way with waves breaking around me :eek:), but this has helped me in the pool.
My aim is to even out my strokes
You're definately not alone in this. I've been working on it too, primarily because my strokes feel uneven from side to side, and I think breathing to both sides equally might help me get things balanced out.
If I start out trying to breathe to my awkward side, I get panicky, dizzy and nauseous. I find that if I work up to a full stroke through drills, I do much better both breathing to my awkward side and bilaterally. I do the following drills. I start with kick set laying on my weak side, lower arm extended with my head neutral (mostly under water). Turning my head up to grab a breath feels much more natural. Then I do an exaggerated catch-up drill, breathing every stroke on both sides. Then I'll swim just breathing to my awkward side. And finally I'll do a set breathing bilaterally. I guess I'm taking away the stroke to start, and then adding it back in bit by bit. I feel more in control and by the end, breathing to my weak side seems a little more natural.
I have no idea what swimming drills in an ocean is like (I'm trying to image trying to get comfortable this way with waves breaking around me :eek:), but this has helped me in the pool.
My aim is to even out my strokes
