If we are supposed to be, in the front crawl, always rolling from side to side, what are the advantages of not breathing every other stroke or breathing less and swimming straight? Or should we roll to the side even though not taking a breath? Or is is the fact that the moving of your head a little more to take the breath making more drag? I can see the not breathing an issue in fly because breathing breaks the natural porpoising of the body. The more I swim the fly without breathing the faster I go, so I have to dwell with that, but in freestyle what is the deal? Newbie questions again. billy fanstone
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It may or may not matter depending on your personal goals. You don’t need to be a top class competitor to challenge yourself to bilateral breath or do flip turns or swim a 100 or 10K without stopping. A number of swimmers at all skill levels have a goal of improved efficiency, for many of them bilateral breathing is a step in achieving this goal.
Rob, in the immortal words of "Cool Hand Luke", What we have here is a lack of communication! I didn't mean you shouldn't improve, or better your times or try and swim with a better technique. I meant that at a certain point there is such difficulty in doing bilateral breathing, if you learned way back differently, that you will be so hindered by trying to bilateral breath that you might lose the rest of the joy and improving other skills in swimming. I know people who learned to swim later in life who will not do a flip turn ever. They have "vertigo" when trying to learn the flip turn. Okay, if I am alone in a lane I will swim 2,000 whatever with all my turns flip turns. But if I am in a group sharing a lane, I have a problem with flipping blind with maybe someone behind me and I just go for the open turn. When we do timed trials or some speed drills with turns, then the coach has the group divided and only one at a time will have the lane. When I swim 1,000 meters in an open water competition in a city close by, sometimes I am the only one in my age group. But I am always wanting to lower my time for that distance. Everytime I swim the local meets I know from looking at the line up what will probably be the results of my age group. But I also know my times for the distance and I am always trying to improve. Lastly, I can move my chin to the left way back, no way I can do that to the right. I can train to get a little better but my muscles and bones are pretty much where they have been for ages. Sort of like which foot goes in the front when slaloming in water skis, snowboarding or riding skateboards or other. You favor one side. You can use the other side, but better stay with the side you favor and got used to. That is what happened in swimming way back. You trained to the side you favored to breathe. Most right handed people breathe to the left...even top swimmers when swimming fast or sprinting use one side more than the other...to each his own...billy fanstone
It may or may not matter depending on your personal goals. You don’t need to be a top class competitor to challenge yourself to bilateral breath or do flip turns or swim a 100 or 10K without stopping. A number of swimmers at all skill levels have a goal of improved efficiency, for many of them bilateral breathing is a step in achieving this goal.
Rob, in the immortal words of "Cool Hand Luke", What we have here is a lack of communication! I didn't mean you shouldn't improve, or better your times or try and swim with a better technique. I meant that at a certain point there is such difficulty in doing bilateral breathing, if you learned way back differently, that you will be so hindered by trying to bilateral breath that you might lose the rest of the joy and improving other skills in swimming. I know people who learned to swim later in life who will not do a flip turn ever. They have "vertigo" when trying to learn the flip turn. Okay, if I am alone in a lane I will swim 2,000 whatever with all my turns flip turns. But if I am in a group sharing a lane, I have a problem with flipping blind with maybe someone behind me and I just go for the open turn. When we do timed trials or some speed drills with turns, then the coach has the group divided and only one at a time will have the lane. When I swim 1,000 meters in an open water competition in a city close by, sometimes I am the only one in my age group. But I am always wanting to lower my time for that distance. Everytime I swim the local meets I know from looking at the line up what will probably be the results of my age group. But I also know my times for the distance and I am always trying to improve. Lastly, I can move my chin to the left way back, no way I can do that to the right. I can train to get a little better but my muscles and bones are pretty much where they have been for ages. Sort of like which foot goes in the front when slaloming in water skis, snowboarding or riding skateboards or other. You favor one side. You can use the other side, but better stay with the side you favor and got used to. That is what happened in swimming way back. You trained to the side you favored to breathe. Most right handed people breathe to the left...even top swimmers when swimming fast or sprinting use one side more than the other...to each his own...billy fanstone
