I've always tried to breathe every other stroke in fly, but watching the elites at Worlds breathe every stroke made me want to try it out. So recently I experimented with breathing every stroke in fly. Findings after a couple workouts where I averaged about 600 total yards of full-stroke fly:
Breathing every stroke has a negative impact on my body position
I can help that by kicking harder
The additional oxygen that I get from all the extra breathing helps fuel the harder kicking, but it seems like I'm working harder overall (higher perceived pulse rate at the end of each swim, but I didn't actually measure it)
Stroke counts and times are about the same
So I think I've found a useful drill to make me kick harder, but I doubt I'll be trying this in a race anytime soon. Has anyone else (who hasn't always swum fly this way) messed around with breathing every stroke in fly? What were your findings?
Parents
Former Member
You know I come from the other end of the spectrum: I cannot for the life of me figure out how to do the butterfly without breathing every stroke. Keeping my head down seems to limit my body action and truncate my entire stroke. Add the breath and I am able to undulate my entire body and bring into play the muscles of my torso. I actually marvel at the guys that are able to keep their heads down for even one stroke; if I tried that I can guarantee you I would flood a lung by the third stroke.
My brother was a nationally ranked flyer (in Canada, in the seventies), he helped teach me and as a result I actually was always told I had a very nice fly technically. I never actually tried in the stroke and thus never managed to do much of anything in competition. I now am quite satisfied if I complete 50 meters of butterfly non-stop without flooding my lungs.
You know I come from the other end of the spectrum: I cannot for the life of me figure out how to do the butterfly without breathing every stroke. Keeping my head down seems to limit my body action and truncate my entire stroke. Add the breath and I am able to undulate my entire body and bring into play the muscles of my torso. I actually marvel at the guys that are able to keep their heads down for even one stroke; if I tried that I can guarantee you I would flood a lung by the third stroke.
My brother was a nationally ranked flyer (in Canada, in the seventies), he helped teach me and as a result I actually was always told I had a very nice fly technically. I never actually tried in the stroke and thus never managed to do much of anything in competition. I now am quite satisfied if I complete 50 meters of butterfly non-stop without flooding my lungs.
