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Bilateral breathing just blew up my swim times!
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 2013-09-18 8:05 PM |
Member  169  |  Subject: Bilateral breathing just blew up my swim times!I've been swimming for about a year and have struggled to get faster. I've been stuck around 2:00/100 for most of the year. I tried bilateral breathing 8 months ago or so and just couldn't get comfortable breathing on my weak side. Always took on water etc... So I joined a USMS group a few months ago and have gotten alot stronger and comfortable in the water. Swim coach prefers uni breathing as does the rest of the group so it's never been pushed. My typical 100 time was still around 1:55ish. Until two days ago... I decided to give bilateral breathing a try again and see if I felt more comfortable and I did. I also found I wasn't feeling oxygen depleted waiting the extra stroke to breath and, no exaggeration here, I'm swimming 1:40 avg for long swims and down near 1:30-:1:35 for fast short swims. I'm not gassed and feel very comfortable with it. I've managed this through 2 2hr swim groups. I was flabbergasted at the immediate improvement and so was most of the group. I went from being one of the slowest to one of the fastest pretty much overnight. I think it has alot to do with being able to streamline better with fewer breathes, I dunno. Whatever it is I FEEL much faster in the water and have a noticeably more balanced, straighter stroke. It may sound hard to believe because it's such a dramatic improvement in almost no time but it's true. I feel completely different in the water now. I still can't really breast stroke or backstroke well but my freestyle just moved up a couple of levels in the blink of an eye. Anyone else experience this? |
| 2013-09-18 8:30 PM in reply to: aliddle9876 |
Veteran 2842   Austin, Texas | Subject: RE: Bilateral breathing just blew up my swim times! Awesome improvement, and it'll serve you waaaay better in races! I do find that if I breath when I need air, I'm faster. Not being at all facetious here, either - if I try to hold for even one extra stroke for a few cycles at a given pace, I get totally O2 starved and my form really suffers. If I breath, I swim faster, more comfortably and more relaxed than if I try to get an extra stroke without breathing and keep my head down. I'm sure there are good reasons for trying not to breath as much or reducing the breath count/stroke for a given pace (streamlining, balance, position in the water column, whatever), but I like air and my "form" probably doesn't suffer enough to outweigh letting the engine rev a bit higher. Would love to hear the other side to this from real fish (if even just to understand it better), but I breath a lot when I swim hard. Matt |
| 2013-09-18 8:40 PM in reply to: aliddle9876 |
Veteran 287 Tucson | Subject: RE: Bilateral breathing just blew up my swim times! I had the same experience. Although I am not nearly as fast as you. I stumbled across some info on swim smooth about shoulder pain improving with bilateral breathing. I gave it a try since I was having trouble with my shoulder. Took me a few weeks to get the hang of it. My shoulder pain improved and I got faster too. It's funny because I have since tried going back to one sided breathing just for fun. Now it feels like hyperventilating. I stick with the bilteral breathing and sometimes need an extra breath when swimming hard. Good stuff! |
| 2013-09-18 10:16 PM in reply to: aliddle9876 |
Veteran 360 Waukegan, IL | Subject: RE: Bilateral breathing just blew up my swim times! Congrats! That's some great gains! After I got the hang of bilateral breathing, I did notice some time drops. After some more analysis and self-monitoring, I noticed that bilateral breathing forced me to fix some inbalances in my stroke AND swim with a slightly higher stroke rate. I think the higher stroke rate is what triggered the immediate time drops. Again, congrats! |
| 2013-09-19 5:45 AM in reply to: aliddle9876 |
1660 | Subject: RE: Bilateral breathing just blew up my swim times! Most likely a head positioning error when you breathe, so if you breathe more, you slow more. You can test this as well - see how fast you can do a short 25 or 50, while doing breathing every 2,3,5, or if you can, 7 strokes, at a hard but not all-out effort. If your times are faster with less breathing, then you know. Or try a swim snorkel - if you're faster with it, then breathing /head position is slowing you down. Sometimes the head position errors actually lead to stroke errors, so it's not so simple as just tilting/turning the head less. |
| 2013-09-19 6:15 AM in reply to: aliddle9876 |
Master 8247 Eugene, Oregon Bronze member | Subject: RE: Bilateral breathing just blew up my swim times! Not sure I'm a fish but a pretty experienced swimmer who for years breathed only on one side. In my teens I was around 21 minutes for 1650 yards/1500m (in a pool), breathing with a 2-2-4 pattern. As a 40+ triathlete, I'm lucky to be in the 25-26 minute range for that distance. In the last three years, since starting tri, I've worked with a couple of coaches and a lot on my own to master bilateral breathing since it is necessary for some OWS, in particular since most of my races are in the ocean with current/chop. After a few months last year when I'd injured my elbow (tripping while running) and was physically unable to breathe on my dominant side for a while, it now feels natural to breathe to either/both sides. But my times haven't really changed substantially. In a distance swim, breathing every three strokes works for me, as does 2-2-4 to one side. If you do the math, that's a really similar rate--3 breaths/8 strokes vs. 3 breaths/9 strokes. In a race, I'll naturally do 2-2-4, unless conditions or sighting require me to do otherwise, in which case I will. If your times have substantially improved, guessing it's because a. Maybe you weren't breathing enough before (2 was too much, 4 was too little). b. Your breathing to one side made your stroke somehow unbalanced. I do notice that my stroke is a bit smoother and my kick more efficient when breathing bilaterally; I just haven't really seen that translate into faster times, though. I actually find that I sprint faster when breathing to one side, while the bilateral pattern seems to be more of an energy saver over the long haul. |
| 2013-09-19 6:24 AM in reply to: Hot Runner |
Member 91 | Subject: RE: Bilateral breathing just blew up my swim times! Bilateral breathing for me feels way better and natural in the pool. In OW, I still prefer breathing to my right side only. Not sure, but probably psychological issue. As for the OP, I know what the answer is. When you finally learned how to bilateral breath, you became quite excited and had a huge surge of adrenaline, thereby increasing your power and energy and next thing you know...BOOM - 1:30/100m.  |
| 2013-09-19 7:49 AM in reply to: Jpro19 |
Extreme Veteran 1986 Cypress, TX | Subject: RE: Bilateral breathing just blew up my swim times! Originally posted by Jpro19 In OW, I still prefer breathing to my right side only. Not sure, but probably psychological issue. Not psychological but physiological. You get 50% more oxygen. |
| 2013-09-19 7:58 AM in reply to: GMAN 19030 |
| 553 St Catharines, Ontario | Subject: RE: Bilateral breathing just blew up my swim times! Originally posted by GMAN 19030 Originally posted by Jpro19 In OW, I still prefer breathing to my right side only. Not sure, but probably psychological issue. Not psychological but physiological. You get 50% more oxygen. One good way to look at the difference between bilateral (3 stroke breathing) lateral (2 stroke breathing) is that it is only 17% less intake per stroke. This is the kind of gap you have to train to manage if you want to go full bilateral and that gap is well within reach for most endurance athletees if they are working on 1-2km swim distances as thier target. |
| 2013-09-19 8:33 AM in reply to: aliddle9876 |
Champion 11989 Philly 'burbs | Subject: RE: Bilateral breathing just blew up my swim times! Congrats on the improvement. I am curious about your technique before the switch. How often were you breathing? I find that I am fastest when doing single side breathing while breathing every stroke on that side, so every two strokes. Bi-laterally I breath every three strokes. I can also do single sided every 4 strokes. For me it all depends on my effort and the focus of that particular set or session. When I work harder I breathe more often. |
| 2013-09-19 8:55 AM in reply to: mrbbrad |
Veteran 2842 Austin, Texas | Subject: RE: Bilateral breathing just blew up my swim times! Wow - I think I totally misread the OP! Not unusual, as I'm not always the sharpest scalpel on the tray... I was thinking that you went from every 4 strokes to every 3, but infer from the balance of the posts that you went from every 2 to every three. This decreases the # of breaths, so my comments (though accurate for ME) are opposite what you're saying. When I race, or even swim hard, I usually start out with a 2,2,2,2,2,3,2,2,2,2,2,3 kind of thing - mostly one side, but switch up to sight on the 3 stroke and see what's on my other side. But, I go every 2 to get more air and hammer the start. Once I settle into my race pace (Oly or HIM - never done an IM but imagine I wouldn't sprint start it!), it's more like a 2,2,2,3,2,2,2,3,2,2,2,3 etc. (with one more or less on each side, depending on race conditions, etc.). If there's a chop, I'm unilateral on the opposite side... So, I like air, but I gather you and others are saying that breathing more makes you slower. I had the opposite experience, oddly. Or, I could be misreading even my misreading! Swimming is confusing, but I really enjoy it. Matt |
| 2013-09-19 10:42 AM in reply to: yazmaster |
Member 1083 | Subject: RE: Bilateral breathing just blew up my swim times! Congrats on the improvement. That's great. I agree this sounds like you probably have an inefficiency in your stroke while you breathe that's slowing you down if you saw that much improvement. The only reason to check this out is that if it is in fact the case and you can correct it - you'll be even faster no matter how often you breathe. |
| 2013-09-19 12:53 PM in reply to: mcmanusclan5 |
Champion 11989 Philly 'burbs | Subject: RE: Bilateral breathing just blew up my swim times! Originally posted by mcmanusclan5 Wow - I think I totally misread the OP! Not unusual, as I'm not always the sharpest scalpel on the tray... I was thinking that you went from every 4 strokes to every 3, but infer from the balance of the posts that you went from every 2 to every three.
I'm waiting to hear what the OP has to say. Like you, I am surmising that the OP went from 4 to 3. And like you, I go faster when I breathe more (or, said differently, I breathe more when I go faster) |
| 2013-09-19 1:14 PM in reply to: aliddle9876 |
Regular 273 | Subject: RE: Bilateral breathing just blew up my swim times! I taught myself bilateral breathing earlier this year, just to help even out my stroke and to learn to breath on my weak side (knowing I'd be doing OWS with unpredictable chop). I'm now comfortable doing it, but honestly did not notice that it made me any faster. I'm still as slow as Christmas. During OWS races (Oly/HIM distance), I tend to resort back to breathing every 2 strokes, just b/c that's when I feel I need it. I think this is just due to still being relatively new to OWS, and I just don't stay as calm. The good part is that I'm much more comfortable if the chop dictates I breath left, whereas 6 months ago I couldn't breathe left to save my life. Anyway, my overpriced $.02. Glad it helped you. |
| 2013-09-19 1:26 PM in reply to: mrbbrad |
Member 169 | Subject: RE: Bilateral breathing just blew up my swim times! Originally posted by mrbbrad Originally posted by mcmanusclan5 Wow - I think I totally misread the OP! Not unusual, as I'm not always the sharpest scalpel on the tray... I was thinking that you went from every 4 strokes to every 3, but infer from the balance of the posts that you went from every 2 to every three.
I'm waiting to hear what the OP has to say. Like you, I am surmising that the OP went from 4 to 3. And like you, I go faster when I breathe more (or, said differently, I breathe more when I go faster) I went from breathing every left stroke to left, stroke, stroke, right, stroke, stroke, left etc.... I think it's probably the sweet spot. I was breathing so much that it was slowing me down before but if I tried to go 4 strokes between breathes I would probably suffocate. It's hard to describe but I can actually FEEL the increased speed between strokes. I FEEL myself rolling more on my right side now and keeping my head down. I knew I wasn't imagining the boost when the guy in the lane next to me (who I normally swim next to every session) commented that I was moving fast as hell that day out of no where. I have a sprint on the 28th so we'll see if I'm comfortable enough to swim that way in the pack, but if not I'm fine breathing only to one side. |
| 2013-09-19 2:31 PM in reply to: aliddle9876 |
| Iron Donkey 38643 , Wisconsin | Subject: RE: Bilateral breathing just blew up my swim times! Daaaaang, dude! There could be hope for me yet! |
| 2013-09-19 3:03 PM in reply to: 1stTimeTri |
Veteran 555 | Subject: RE: Bilateral breathing just blew up my swim times! Congratulations! Wish you had 'before and after' underwater video. +1 no doubt you improved your efficiency. My guess is you now have a more symmetrical, and more pronounced roll, which may also help your kick be more effective. Some former Olympic swimmer said 'it's not who makes the most strokes, but it's who pulls the most water, that goes the fastest'. A more pronounced roll gets more extension on your reach and more extension on your push. I wonder if you also changed your hand pattern (tight fin to partly open 'bear claw'?). I finally broke a bad habit, during a right side breath I was actually opening my reaching left hand and pushing forward (the wrong way, like a traffic cop signaling STOP) and down, to lift my head (too high) to catch a breath. While helpful in big chop, this was a disaster for getting from A to B. Bi-lateral breathing helped me smooth this out. And a coach yelling "the air is just as good 1" above the water as 6" above the water", "breathe with one eye underwater!", etc. Plus as you go faster (sub 2:00 / 100), there's more of an trough behind your bow wave (brow wave? ) from which to gasp air. |
| 2013-10-02 8:55 AM in reply to: AtlantaBill |
Member 169 | Subject: RE: Bilateral breathing just blew up my swim times! Just an update, my times have increased significantly since this post. I don't know what happened but I kind of suck again. I'm back up to around 1:45-1:50 at distance. Not sure what went wrong here. I was badass for a week or so though. Oh well.  |
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