It's normal.

keep working at it. I'm a natural right side breather, and probably always will be in races, but one thing I've been doing is breathing to the left during pull sets. I also need a lot less air during pull sets, so I'll breathe every 3 or 4 rather than every 2 like I do when I swim.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Use some fins to give you propulsion while you work on the issue. Your lack of motion leads to thoughts you are sinking and you'll tighten up and things go downhill fast. While I'm not a fan in any way of bilateral breathing, the drills I see people doing least me to call it practice drowning. Give yourself some aid in forward motion with fins, slowly work the issue without panic and gradually adapt.

Interesting thoughts. I also am not a fan of bilateral breathing and I do not breath bilaterally during races (at least not yet) obviously. That said, I do feel strongly that there are some imbalances in my strokes, uneven hip rotation, dropping arms, etc. The thought was that working bilaterally would require more stroke symmetry or at least help me identify easier some of those imbalances that are sort of masked when breathing to only one side and muscling through the water. Don't get me wrong, I have a ton of work to do in the pool and there are many many things that need addressed to help me swim faster. This is just a starting point. I'm tired of fighting the water and dreading my swims.

Sometimes the solution to a collapsing lead arm is as simple as spearing a little deeper.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

I think adding propulsion will help a lot. I also think some imbalance is not a bad thing, especially with swimmers who did not grow up with the sport and develop musculature and flexibility that is developed over years of training. I am not even on any of the 3 sports and have been told that after many years to do so may compromise my efforts, at least for a while. I also feel a center mount snorkel is a very big help with seeing and solving issues. The snorkel, Finis Agility paddles and time will be a big help for you IMO.

I just see so many people struggling with drills given to them that they really don't have the ability to do. Then people wonder why swimming is no fun. Once someone does a drill incorrectly they are further away as they are practicing a wrong habit. Just like many things, perfect practice is what you need.

The question you didn't ask implied is will bilateral breathing smooth out imbalances that will then translate when you go back to single side breathing? I think the obvious answer (yes) is not the right one. But I am thinking about it.

Thinking out loud here, stroke imbalance is the manifestation of a strength, flexibility, or mobility issue deficiency somewhere from your head to your toe. Why would bilateral breathing address that?

Honest answer? Because SwimSmooth said so.

I know without a doubt that I do not rotate evenly. To Geigers point, yes propulsion will help, I can breath pretty well to the left when I'm moving forward fast enough.

It seems that people like to say "you just need to swim more", but isn't practicing the same poor technique over and over just training your body to swim with poor technique? I do totally get that if you can't do the drill properly, there's no sense in doing the drill.

I'm sure that now will come the "get a coach or go to Masters" response, but I work an oddly timed job and just do not have the ability to get to a Masters practice and cannot afford a coach. So following a system like SwimSmooth is the best option that I have available to me. Two years in the water at has helped me with being able to feel what is going wrong. Coordinating the body to do the right thing is a whole different challenge.

I would also imagine that core strength is a major issue at play for me. If my core doesnt collapse, then I probably do not drop the arm, which allows me to breath without lifting my head, which would allow me to keep my legs from sinking.

As a follow-up question - what is the biggest difference between a 2:00/100 swimmer and a 1:30/100 swimmer? Is it strength, being slippery, a strong catch? I'm sure it's a little bit of everything, but I think the hardest thing for me as a new swimmer, and I'm sure others, is that there are a million things to focus on in the water. Trying to focus on them all at once is a struggle as well, because you end up with a bunch of half assed technique. So what is the proper steps for improvement?

I would guess that dropping the arm is a natural reaction to feeling like you are sinking, thus putting the arm out to "help" by pushing down on the water. I would also guess that you feel that you are moving up and down while doing that instead of streaming straight ahead.

On the topic of an even stroke, I think that a very controversial subject. Sutto has some interesting opinions on this post: http://trisutto.com/hold-the-line/
and a previous one on letting a person's natural tendencies determine their stroke. Not even every Olympian has the same stroke. The basic idea would be reduce drag and the hold the water. As I said, fins, center mount snorkel finis paddles and you are off to a good start. Once you get feeling balanced there, start some of the other drills, but I have to say that many of the drills coaches prescribe need a fair amount of swimming ability to do. Many start way too early and doing a drill poorly is worse than not doing them at all. Patience....it's a very slow road.

Out of curiosity, what is the objection to bilateral breathing? It is the way I naturally breathe while swimming, and attempts to just breathe to one side make me feel like I am swimming with a limp. What is the advantage of breathing to one side?
(I say this as someone who has been swimming since childhood but has never swam competitively).

2 main things:

1 we all have one side that is stronger than the other, so might as well take advantage of that.

2 more air is more better.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

That's awesome you can, but most athletes when racing breathe more often as air and Oxygen is your main limiter. I'm not as talented after swimming for over 60 years. Especially at distance, why not get as much as possible. Even Ledecky breathes almost every stroke. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjG-w2ckvqE. She's also not symmetric.

So would the contention be then that swim mechanics can be improved as efficiently by breathing to only a dominate side? If that's the case I'm leaving bilateral once and for all because it's miserable and I feel like my core strength and rigidness, catch and hand entry are much bigger, low hanging fruit.

That would be my advice. Try to infuse some as you warmup if you like. Usually also the best times to make drastic changes are in off season, so I'd focus on what makes the most benefit to where you are and your race schedule. I almost never breathe on my weak side, and have raced in many terrible conditions throughout years. With speed, a pocket is formed that allows you to breathe no matter what the conditions are. The only good reason to breathe off side in a race is in case you need to check out competitors, but that just my opinion.

Maybe it's dumb to have taken me this long to realize it, but I might just need swim specific endurance to realize a faster pace. My SPM per Garmin is about 22spm which I guess equates to around 44spm (I'm assuming Garmin is only counting one arm). That's insanely slow. Higher stroke rate feels like a sprint though. Maybe that's where I have the most growth? SPL is around 20. So i'm really inefficient with a slow turnover. I assume that means that I just need to swim faster to get faster while trying to reduce drag.

I wouldn't say it was dumb, as we all try different things hoping for that last bit of time we're losing. Better to experiment than not. Strokes even change as swimmers mature or work on different distances.
Infuse some real speed in some of your workouts, such as all out 25s or even 12.5s. I think when you sprint really hard, you can enhance the effect of how to generate power. Also, paddles are good, and I use a band and a buoy called the EneyBuoy. It's pretty cool as you can fill the chambers with water to get more drag so it's quite a strength workout. I would not even think about stroke rate. Instead do some 50s at your usual stroke rate and then play a bit with it and see what feels better. It is somewhat thought that a higher swim rate is better in rough water, but I would not obsess over stroke rate. Swim vastly varying paces and effort levels and the speed will come. As in many of the sports, triathletes don't swim hard enough or easy enough, but bunch everything towards the middle. Practice both fast and easy....

I think you've just made a great observation. If those numbers are correct, the lowest hanging fruit for greater speed for you is almost certainly increasing your stroke rate.

SPL isn't a great measure, because of the variable of glide distance off the wall. That said, 20 SPL isn't bad....but only if you can hold it at stroke rates much higher than 44SPM. You've got to have an abnormally long stroke length to be fast at 44SPM. If you can increase your SPM to 60, something that's very much in the "normal" range, you can be reasonably fast with your current stroke length; somewhere in the neighborhood of 1:35/100.

Sounds like you need to invest in a Tempo Trainer. That allows you to work on increasing your stroke rate in small, precise increments. Trying to increase SPM by "feel" tends to result in coarse, inconsistent steps which decreases the likelihood of successful adoption.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

Any options besides the Finis tempo trainer? I've almost purchased a bunch of times and it just has such crap reviews bc it seems to constantly fall apart or die.

3 I would like to add that drowning in a triathlon really sucks. Open water is NOT a pool, where most of us do our practice swims. I would implore you as professional who gets paid to teach adult wanna-be triathletes to swim, to continue to learn to breathe to both sides. Rounding a buoy, another swimmer too close to you, waves breaking on your breathing side, and many other reasons too numerous to mention enumerate that your safety depends on you competently being able to breathe to both sides. This needs to be practiced in a pool. If you can't/won't do this, then you are not ready for the danger of open water swimming. I don't want to read about yet another triathlete death in the water (and yes, I understand that heart problems brought on by stress-see above-is usually what causes death, not actual drowning).

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DFL > DNF > DNS