George doesn't give any clue how hard that is. ;) You might try three strokes then glide. The glide gives you a chance to make sure you're long on both sides, rotate the same amount, have the same head position, etc. Take your breath after the second stroke. Another is 10 kicks to one pull. Focus on proper rotation and keep your face pointed at the bottom of the pool except to breathe. Breath before the pull, not after.
I found it very hard to breathe bilaterally and still don't do it well. I never feel like I can take in as much air on my left side as my right. There is definitely still some imbalance there.
Skip
I taught myself bilateral/rotational breathing before I had a coach, and even so noticed that my speed picked up. I couldn't believe it, it felt so slow and awkward at first, but the pace clock said faster every time.
With a coach: single-arm drills.
Back to me: I use the good side to inform the worse side how things should feel. Sometimes in the middle of a length of single-arm drills on the new side I will stroke once on the old side as a quick check.
I have 20 years of one-sided breathing to get over, but it's happening. Bilateral breathing also (in my case) has improved the roll, the core action, and several other things, and it simply releases me from the tether of one-sided breathing. Instead of 2, 4, 6, etc. I can breathe in any combination. :agree:
I won't be competing with Phelps, so it's OK if he does it differently.
VB
You know, I'm 24, and even though that sounds relatively young, I'd pretty much written bilateral breathing off as something I'd probably not really grasp. I've been swimming for about 17-18 years now (I've lost track), so it gets harder to unlearn bad habits.
But after I swam the 1650 at a meet in April, I thought it might be a good idea to give bilateral breathing a try. I was as uncomfortable as I ever remember at first, but after about two months now, all of my freestyle is bilateral now, and I only backslide occassionally to my previous bad habits. Sure my stroke has gotten sloppier as a result, and I haven't really tested it with some good high intensity intervals, but those are short term issues I'll trade for the long term benefit.
My suggestion would be not to try to convert all at once. I'd start with short distances at a time in your workout--maybe 25 or 50. Then work your way up as you get more comfortable, say a 100 or 200 or 300 as part of your warmup. The key is not to expect a rapid or dramatic improvement at any one point. Even 6-12 months (or more) is a worthwhile amount of time.
The two issues that I've had issues with are not being able to rotate as far to my nondominant side and not getting enough air. For the former issue, I'd recommend doing something akin to a 3 second body roll--kick on one side for three seconds, take a stroke and roll over to your other side, and kick for three seconds. Good body rotation without having the move your neck makes it easier.
For not getting enough air, you want to make sure your mouth and nose get out far enough and you get a deep enough breath (which may be hard if you don't normally breath on that side).
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I also noticed that some (don't know how many) swimmers breathed to one side at Trials. I think part of this issue is that many of these swimmers got used to breathing towards one side, and since that works for them, there's a greater risk of screwing up their stroke. (Whereas for a slowpoke like me, you can't get that much slower!).
In sprint races, when you may be taking X number of breaths per length, it may matter less that you breath to the same side. For longer races, I would think that there would be a greater incremental effect (more breaths, and more breaths per length). But that's just a hunch.
Patrick King
I think it's important to distinguish between being able to breath to either side and alternating breaths to either side (breathing every third stroke).
To me it makes sense to learn to comfortably breath to either side and then pick the breathing pattern that is the best trade off for a particular speed and distance rather than specifically learning to breath every third stroke.
I thought it was also interesting how many different butterfly breathing patterns there were.
Anyone with ideas how to learn to breathe to the side in fly???
Skip
Alternate side breathing is one of the most overrrated things in swimming. Watch the trials and tell me how many people do this -- almost nobody.
I was extremely surprised at the number of US Olympic Trials swimmers who didn't bilateral breath...And it was nailed into me to breathe every three or else. I guess it comes down to what works for you.
I thought it was also interesting how many different butterfly breathing patterns there were.
Alternate side breathing is one of the most overrrated things in swimming. Watch the trials and tell me how many people do this -- almost nobody.
Seconding this. Every swimmer has a strong side to breathe on. In races, it's a good idea to go to this side.
