My coach is having us experiment by breathing every other stroke or every third stroke in *** stroke. I see why he thinks it could be faster, but I get extremely winded by doing only every other stroke and I can't imagine doing more than a 50 this way. He wants us to work up to being able to do a 200 breathing every third stroke and anything less, every fifth. If this truely is faster, why haven't we seen any Olympic swimmers doing this? What are your thoughts?
Good luck with that, it sounds pretty crazy. Maybe there might be some speed benefit in it but it sounds like you'd lose more than that from the oxygen debt you'd be going into.
I get terribly winded after just a 50 *** breathing every stroke and I'm a breaststroker. As it is *** is a very oxygen-heavy stroke, especially with the pullouts. That and breathing not every time seems like it'd really throw the rhythm off.
It'd be interesting to see if oxygen debt could be taken out of the equation a bit by doing 25s fully rested and comparing times. Do one breathing every stroke, one breathing every other, etc, and see if it's any faster. I kinda doubt it's faster to no breath every stroke, certainly not much faster.
Seems suicidal to me. Breaststroke already sucks enough without making it harder.
Wayne McCaully recommends trying no breath breaststroke for the 50 BR.I know of no one who recommends this for beyond 50.I have tried it and it is slower for me.This sounds like the kind of coach who likes 3,5,7 strokes/breath freestyle sets.I think it makes about as much sense as not letting football players drink water,a wrong headed attempt to instill"toughness".That said,breathing every other stroke can be a good drill to help work on head position.Ask you coach if he thinks Phelps breaths too much on a 200 fly.
Thanks everyone. Your replies are pretty much what I had thought. I have asthma and air is really important as I can't hold in as much of it as I would like. I know the 200 is crazy for not breathing every stroke, but I wanted to see what others thought about the idea overall.
sjstuart - thanks for the links. I have not had a chance to read them yet, (busy day and just got home and 5 am practice tomorrow, I hope to read them tomorrow) but hope to tomorrow.
I also found it to be slower. I only utilized it in the 50. i think anything over that distance it is hurting you (like trying to swim a 100 free breathing every 7 or holding your breath the first 37-50 yards). I couldn't train myself NOT to breathe every time i rose out of the water.
Here's a link to an article by Wayne McCauley on breathing every other stroke in short breaststroke races.
There's also some discussion in the early pages of Ande's Swim Faster Faster thread. See posts 27-60.
