Bilateral breathing

girlwithcurls2

I'm wondering if this is an important skill for me to learn/practice at this point. I am an adult learner, still working on finding my breathing rhythm every time I go for a swim. I have a definite dominate side, and my weaker side is significantly more difficult for me. For a non-competitive swimmer, is this important to learn?

For the record, I can over-rotate on my "good side" very easily (it has taken a while to keep myself from doing that and ending up in a scissor kick). My "weak side" is so bad that I usually end up with a mouthful of water.

Discuss...

Thanks, swimmers!
~Curly

Macstraw

Curly - I'm a life-long swimmer & (although I can) I don't bi-lateral breathe. I've always been a 4 stroke per breath freestyler & always breathe to my left side. I can breathe to my right side, but I don't find it nearly as comfortable so I don't bother since I'm not competing anymore. Truth be told, even if I was competing I doubt I would change my ways at this point anyway.....

Only you can decide how important it is to you to learn, but I would say don't put too much on your plate at once. Were I coaching you, I would tell you to get the strong side comfortable & build the rest of your stroke to where you want it to be, after that you can take on the task of bi-lateral breathing because you can give it your full concentration if the rest of your stroke is committed to muscle memory....

As for the importance of learning it as a non-competitor, again I would leave that choice to you. There is a school of thought that says you can develop pain in the neck area by breathing to only 1 side because you're not "balancing" yourself by turning to both sides equally. I can only speak for myself, but at age 51 & being a life-long swimmer I've never had any pain like that & I only breathe to the left.....

cheshirecatastrophe

I wind up with rotator cuff issues when I only breathe to one side consistently.

That probably has a LOT more to do with the mechanics of my stroke and muscle imbalances from water polo (which is not as even-sided as swim) than breathing cadence.

It so happens that breathing ever third works for me oxygen-wise, too.

juliet3455

Curly - When I started swimming I could only breathe on my right, as soon as I went left it was like someone tied a brick to my head and I would turn into a submarine. So I put bi-lateral breathing on the back-shelf as a future to do item and concentrated on improving my stroke/swimming skills-endurance. I can only do 4 stroke rhythm for about 200m then have to drop to a 2 stroke. So a 3 stroke bi-lateral should be better for me. Since I am back into my 2th set of lessons this year I have added bi-lateral breathing and flip turns to my goal list. Both have improved dramatically. One of the other reasons I wanted to add it is that since I wasn't breathing on the one side I would never see my arm and was guilty of dropping the elbow and "chicken winging" the recovery to the start of the next stroke.

I believe Mac is right it is more important to improve the stroke and muscle memory at this time. Put it on the shelf for a future challenge.

pensierobello

I don't know, I think bilateral breathing is pretty important. I only picked it up when I went on my first SwimTrek when I couldn't actually do front crawl at all (I don't know what I was thinking!) and they had to 'baptism of fire' me by teaching me how to swim. I guess because I never did it at home and they taught me bilateral breathing then I couldn't really see it any other way. I think it's really good for balance, and for understanding the stroke and the movement (which is all about rolling and control, really). I actually found that learning with flippers on really helped me (to be fair, I was in the sea so the buoyancy was totally different, but I did have lessons to improve after I came back where I solidified the work I'd done at sea) as it somehow centred me. Now I can either breathe every three or every five! I would totally make the effort - it might well help with the rest of your technique.

joannabixler

I learned bilateral breathing from the beginning, so it feels natural to me. In fact, my instructors would not allow breathing on just one side. It's definitely an important skill of you ever plan on doing open water swimming - you may need to breathe on your non-dominant side to sight land or the waves may be splashing onto your dominant side, making it difficult to breathe. I am no swim coach, so I can't speak to the mechanical difficulties presented. If you want to incorporate it, it may be easier to use a kickboard or buoy to get the feeling right. (FWIW , I breathe every 3 or 5 strokes.

fishgutzy

I used to only breath out of the left. But once I started swimming longer distances (over 1.5 miles) I forced myself to learn to help better balance my technique.
It took about 100 miles for the right side to feel as natural as the left. But now I would do it any other way. Feels completely natural from both sides. Like anything, it just takes repetition to develop the natural feel.