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?
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So I think I've found a useful drill to make me kick harder I have to disagree here. I hope in the end that you'll see it as a drill to improve your ability to breathe without negative impact on body position, because that's the way butterfly should be swam.
I switched from every other to every stroke several years back. Then, few years after, like another member have suggested earlier in the thread, I found it difficult to leave the head in the water while recovering the arms. Now I can use any breathing pattern (and matter of fact I do, you wouldn't see me performing a 50m breathing every stroke, that's a nonsense to me).
Simple tip. Try to look for where you're going to breathe before actually breathing. I mean take a look at where your head is going to break the surface. We may call this technique: look-then-breathe
Another (not as simple) tip. Try to master this *balance during breathing* drill here, just by looking at it I am sure you'll understand its purpose (again, I use the look-then-breathe technique) YouTube - Fly DrillSide
So I think I've found a useful drill to make me kick harder I have to disagree here. I hope in the end that you'll see it as a drill to improve your ability to breathe without negative impact on body position, because that's the way butterfly should be swam.
I switched from every other to every stroke several years back. Then, few years after, like another member have suggested earlier in the thread, I found it difficult to leave the head in the water while recovering the arms. Now I can use any breathing pattern (and matter of fact I do, you wouldn't see me performing a 50m breathing every stroke, that's a nonsense to me).
Simple tip. Try to look for where you're going to breathe before actually breathing. I mean take a look at where your head is going to break the surface. We may call this technique: look-then-breathe
Another (not as simple) tip. Try to master this *balance during breathing* drill here, just by looking at it I am sure you'll understand its purpose (again, I use the look-then-breathe technique) YouTube - Fly DrillSide
