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
I am kind of jealous. I am yet to implement one of your discoveries (the other I save it for sprint butterfly).
The two discoveries you made are clearly described as the right way to swim the butterfly, at least by E.Maglischo. Most world class butterflyers, especially those that put emphasis on both kicks, pull by bringing their hands very close to each other under the body, before arm extension. I am still unsure why it is the case though.
As for recovering higher over the surface, well there again Maglischo clearly reinforce this aspect. He advocates breathing fairly high over the water, exactly for the reason you mentioned. Not only does it allow you to dive deeper, but he reports having studied a great phenomenon that also occurs. He mention about the effect of the reverse body wave (I think that is what he calls this). When you dive, a wave hits you from behind, thus increasing the forward thrust.
Many congrats.
I am kind of jealous. I am yet to implement one of your discoveries (the other I save it for sprint butterfly).
The two discoveries you made are clearly described as the right way to swim the butterfly, at least by E.Maglischo. Most world class butterflyers, especially those that put emphasis on both kicks, pull by bringing their hands very close to each other under the body, before arm extension. I am still unsure why it is the case though.
As for recovering higher over the surface, well there again Maglischo clearly reinforce this aspect. He advocates breathing fairly high over the water, exactly for the reason you mentioned. Not only does it allow you to dive deeper, but he reports having studied a great phenomenon that also occurs. He mention about the effect of the reverse body wave (I think that is what he calls this). When you dive, a wave hits you from behind, thus increasing the forward thrust.
Many congrats.
