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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Former Member
He said, by breathing every stroke, Michael has learned to sacrifice very little horizontal stability in exchange for increased LEVERAGE. Leverage and increased oxygen uptake made the difference for him--and me. And the rational behind this explanation has been clearly documented in latest Ernest Maglischo's book (Swimming Fastest).
In the Stroke Mechanics analysis section for butterfly, Dr.Maglischo refer to this Leverage thing as generating what he calls the Reverse Bodywave effect. That is after dive/arm entry/first kick, a wave is traveling back, hitting the swimmer's back and thus increasing the forward propulstion.
That's huge part of the reason why I intend to perform a lot of base mileage at BF. These things aren't easy to feel and integrate, but I do believe that they exist.
He said, by breathing every stroke, Michael has learned to sacrifice very little horizontal stability in exchange for increased LEVERAGE. Leverage and increased oxygen uptake made the difference for him--and me. And the rational behind this explanation has been clearly documented in latest Ernest Maglischo's book (Swimming Fastest).
In the Stroke Mechanics analysis section for butterfly, Dr.Maglischo refer to this Leverage thing as generating what he calls the Reverse Bodywave effect. That is after dive/arm entry/first kick, a wave is traveling back, hitting the swimmer's back and thus increasing the forward propulstion.
That's huge part of the reason why I intend to perform a lot of base mileage at BF. These things aren't easy to feel and integrate, but I do believe that they exist.
