Hey everyone:bliss:
I had a question about side breathing in the butterfly and was hoping someone could help me out as I've been experimenting with it but am not sure if I am doing it correctly. My question is this...
When bringing the head out of the water and turning it to the side do I keep my head in that position when again entering the water or do I move my head back to the front position after turning it. Sorry if this question is stupid but I like the feeling I get when I do the fly like this and want to make sure my head movements are correct.
Thanks!!!
Parents
Former Member
why would you want to side breathe in fly anyway? Serious Question...I just don't see the benefits right away.
I found that it fixed a problem with my second half of the 100 fly. By breathing side, I wasn't as likely to start going vertical on the back half of the race. I tried to fix this problem for years without any real progress. The week I started side breathing I dropped about a second off my 100 fly, and even more after that. I've done it ever since because it works for me. I can keep the stroke going longer without loss of technique breathing to the side. I've read in books where they call it more of a bad habit... I think they're wrong or msiguided :)
Begfly: the timing of turning your head back to neutral isn't really all that different from swimming crawl. Once you start to turn the head back to neutral, the arm comes over and the bicep basically forces you to turn your cheek back down just like front crawl. (Note, you should be turning the head back on your own, don't use the arm to actually force the head to turn, only to time it).
I could only see this being a problem or becoming difficult if your arms are way too far apart on recovery, like the people/kids who swim "bent arm" fly and their forearms enter at a right angle to their upper arm. Obviously then theres no bicep coming close to the head to help you time the head turn back. But if you swim fly like this, you should first correct the arm stroke rather than worry about the breathing.
Happy side breathing :)
why would you want to side breathe in fly anyway? Serious Question...I just don't see the benefits right away.
I found that it fixed a problem with my second half of the 100 fly. By breathing side, I wasn't as likely to start going vertical on the back half of the race. I tried to fix this problem for years without any real progress. The week I started side breathing I dropped about a second off my 100 fly, and even more after that. I've done it ever since because it works for me. I can keep the stroke going longer without loss of technique breathing to the side. I've read in books where they call it more of a bad habit... I think they're wrong or msiguided :)
Begfly: the timing of turning your head back to neutral isn't really all that different from swimming crawl. Once you start to turn the head back to neutral, the arm comes over and the bicep basically forces you to turn your cheek back down just like front crawl. (Note, you should be turning the head back on your own, don't use the arm to actually force the head to turn, only to time it).
I could only see this being a problem or becoming difficult if your arms are way too far apart on recovery, like the people/kids who swim "bent arm" fly and their forearms enter at a right angle to their upper arm. Obviously then theres no bicep coming close to the head to help you time the head turn back. But if you swim fly like this, you should first correct the arm stroke rather than worry about the breathing.
Happy side breathing :)
