Mile Swim

It seems to me that which side you breath on and how often you breath are two separate issues. As Guvnah said, if you want to learn to breath left try breathing left every other length (e.g. always breath toward one wall of the pool), or breath right half a length, left half a length, or whatever. How often you should breath is mostly a function of what distance you are swimming, if you want to work on breathing less than do so for that reason, but in my humble opinion learning to breath to the left is not a good reason to change your breathing frequency. For distance swimming, breathing less, by example breathing every third stroke, just reduces your available fuel and makes it that much harder to do those two strokes into and out of the wall without breathing.

personally I don't think changing your breathing pattern / learning to breathe on the left, will make much difference in your 500 time. If you want to improve your 500 time. concentrate on improving your stroke efficiency, turns, speed, anaerobic threshhold, and splitting. swim fast in practice. try resting for a few days or a week before a competition before you attempt to improve your time. try the new fastskin body suits, they really work, Lift weights to improve your strength. the good thing is if you're 10 minutes in the 500 you have a lot of room to improve. Good Luck, ande rasmussen Originally posted by swimgirl_500 Okay, I swim the 500 which is a considerd a mile. Well my time is setting at 10:15 flat. My coach says my problem is that i breath every two arms, and I can only breath to the right. I'm wondering if anyone has an idea on how i can improve my breathing, or my time. Thank you, and sorry if i posted in the wrong place, I'm new. Thank you

i'm not trying to be rude, but i did the math on approximately how long your pool is that you train in. if your coach claims that a 500=1 mile, then maybe you should go to your athletic director and tell him/her to find another swim coach. the math... 5280 ft = 1.6093 km 1.6093 km = 1609.3 m 1609.3 m/ 20 laps (the average for doing a 500) = approx. 80.5 meters. that's 30.5 meters longer than an olympic size pool. the average pool is only 20 meters or 20 yards. also, most mile swims take a lot longer than 10 minutes. If you can swim it in 10 minutes, then you should not need any help. so, the only advice i can give you is to maybe seek a different swim coach.

Ande, do you mean by "resting a few days before a 500" to not swim at all a few days before the meet. Just wondering. Also, what are some good sets to improve your 500 free.