Personal Trainers Forum

[nishpaul]

Master the top five challenges to breathing in freestyle
The most common question I hear in the triathlon world about the mysteries of swimming efficiently usually involves
something to do with breathing. In freestyle, the first step is to get your body position right. Then, for many, you throw in breathing and everything goes haywire! This has to do with lack of balance, using your head instead of your core to breath, and a few other factors. The top five challenges and their remedies are:

1. Not getting enough air
There are two reasons why this typically happens when swimming freestyle. First, make sure you breathe out all of your air
before you rotate to take a breath. When learning, some people try to exhale and inhale while they are rolling to the side for air. There simply is not enough time for this. Your exhalations should only be in the water, in the form of bubbles. Initially the timing may seem difficult, but eventually you will get used to it. Second, you may be sinking as you breathe. Make sure you are rolling to the side to breathe, and not rotating your head and looking straight up. Practise the side-kicking drills.

2. Extended arm sinks while taking a breath
This is mainly a balance issue. While you breathe to one side, your opposite arm should be extending. For many swimmers, this extended arm pushes down into the water (elbow drops) and they are sinking while trying to inhale. The side-kicking will also help to improve this. Another drill, discussed in issue 8 of Your Personal Trainer, which will help with this challenge, is the fist drill, which forces you not to use your hands, therefore improving your balance in the water.

3. Speed is sacrificed because of a pause while breathing
A typical scenario is that you feel like you are cruising along just fine and then you take a breath and it feels like you have just lost all your momentum. To remedy this, when you breathe, concentrate first on
breathing to the side (as in number 1, above), then on having your mouth parallel to the water, instead of over the water. The latter will take a while to master, but once you do, it will take care of the pause, and improve your speed overall.

4. Difficulty breathing while navigating in a race
You need to look up to see where you are going, and at the same time grab a breath. How can you do both? Start with bilateral breathing (breathing on both sides every three strokes). This will help you to see where you are without lifting your head up as much. When you need to lift your head up to sight, try not to look straight ahead – this will make your hips sink and throw you off balance. Instead, take a quick peek at your target, roll to the side to breath, and bring your head right back down into position.

5. Sucking in water while taking a breath
In practice, this will sometimes occur because of numbers 1 and 2, above. In a race, the waves may cause the inhalation of water instead of air (bilateral breathing will help here as well). The drills to practise to improve balance and avoid this unpleasant occurrence are the sidekicking and shark fin drills, as well as the one-arm drill. To perform a shark fin drill, start in the side- kicking position (keep your hips rotated to the side, your shoulders parallel and your head still, looking at the bottom of the pool). Lift your elbow up towards the sky and drag your hand through the water until it reaches your goggle line (or until you’ve made a shark fin). Slide the hand back down, roll on to your back, grab some air and repeat. Don’t forget to keep your eyes looking directly at the bottom of the pool. To perform the one-arm drill, swim a full stroke with one arm while your other arm rests at your side. Breathe on the opposite side of the stroking arm. This isa difficult drill and takes some practice, but it will pay off!