Try turning your head early and look a little bit back and up. Most people who are just starting bilateral breathing, that I have seen, turn very late and look forward, so they drown. Start your head turn as your hand passes under your body, not after you start your recovery. That way your max head turn coincides with your hand coming out of the water.
Start out by always breathing toward the rope (if you're splitting the lane). Try to keep you stroke symmetrical.

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_________________
Dick

Take everything I say with a grain of salt. I know nothing.

Yeah, don't do it. Do what's comfortable.

Not all swimmers use alternate breathing, in fact even many of the great ones don't.

Yeah, don't do it. Do what's comfortable.

That's a bad idea, especially for a triathlete, who's presumably going to be swimming in open water.

docfuel's suggestion about always looking at the lane line is a good one. Mostly it just takes time to get comfortable breathing to either side.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

I did it by taking off 3 months from swimming. I relearned swimming as B/L and now it's natural to breathe on both sides.

It's true that many of the best single-side breathe. But, bilateral breathing is one of the best ways to even out an uneven stroke. I also find that it's a good skill to have when swimming with the wind continually coming from one side or swimming parallel to a beach. In the end, race the way that you are the fastest.

The best way to learn to breathe to your non-dominant side is to just force yourself to breathe the other way. Alternate 25s...one breathing right and one breathing left. Breathe early and just get your mouth out of the water...not your whole head.

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Brandon Marsh - Website | @BrandonMarshTX | RokaSports | 1stEndurance | ATC Bikeshop |

Toughest thing i found when starting tris. You have to learn to roll to both sides. The Total Immersion tapes/DVD's give some good drills for this.

I've practiced this for a long time and am now OK in the pool but in the heat of battle in open water on tri day often find myself reverting back to one sided breathing.

[reply][b]Yeah, don't do it. Do what's comfortable.[/b]

That's a bad idea, especially for a triathlete, who's presumably going to be swimming in open water. [/reply]

why?

I swim in open water, I only breathe to one side. Why is this wrong?

i've forced myself to do it since january and now it's almost natural. i'm still not as smooth breathing left as i am right, but it ain't bad. it's also helped that i've done most of my swimming in that time with pull buoy and paddles (as per ironguide). but even without them, i can still do it competently. practice.

For the naysayers wondering why I would want to breath alternate sides, here are three good reasons:

1) To develop a more balanced stroke
2) Because it would better suit my breathing (now, breathing every other stroke is too little, breather each stroke it too much for me)
3) To help keep me on course.

Why is this wrong?

Well, if it's working for you, don't let me stop you.

But . . . If you can only breath to one side, how do you deal with waves? Or wind? Or that idiot on your breathing side who's swimming dang near on top of you and who's elbow is millimeters away from your face every time you take a breath? Or what if you're swimming parallel to shore, but it's on your non-breathing side?

I guess you can work around these things, but the simple solution is just to be able to breath on both sides.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

"3) To help keep me on course. "

I'll give fourth good reason. At one tri the wind/waves were coming to the side that I normally breath on. Had to turn to the opposite side to avoid getting mouthfuls of water.

I'm not a naysayer, I just think that Triathletes who are learning to swim tend to fall victim to 'paralysis by analysis.' If you are comfortable breathing to one side, do it. Your stroke will be balanced by your technique, not your breathing. You will not 'stay on course' better by changing your breathing.

You will do all of the above by doing what's comfortable for you and finding your own rhythm.

One of my goals last winter was to break my reliance on same-side breathing. I'm 41, and I've been swimming same-side for my entire life, so I new it wouldn't be easy.

When I first started in January, I could not swim 25 meters bilaterally. I simply could not get enough oxygen when I breathed to my left side. Now I am a fully-functional bilateral breather. I don't have to think about it at all.

I'm no coach, so I'm don't have any technical advice for you, but I will try to explain what worked for me:

1) Take is slow. In the beginning, use it only in slow drills. Do 25m right side breathing, 25m left side breathing. Focus on mirroring your 'good side' technique. When you can consistently do 25m comfortably on both sides during a slow drill, move to step 2.

2) Start doing 25 left, 25 right during a small portion (2-400 meters) of your main workout. Again, focus on mirroring your good side technique.

3) Increase your workout percentage using 25 left, 25 right, until you can do your whole workout.

4) Now move to three-stroke bilateral breathing. It should be easy at this point.

The improvements I've made since mastering bilateral breathing have been significant, and my chronic shoulder problems (on my weak side) have disappeared.

Again, I'm no coach, but this worked for me.

[reply][b]Why is this wrong?[/b]

Well, if it's working for you, don't let me stop you.

But . . . If you can only breath to one side, how do you deal with waves? Or wind? Or that idiot on your breathing side who's swimming dang near on top of you and who's elbow is millimeters away from your face every time you take a breath? Or what if you're swimming parallel to shore, but it's on your non-breathing side?

I guess you can work around these things, but the simple solution is just to be able to breath on both sides.[/reply]

I swim faster ;)

Actually, I don't adjust to conditions, I just breathe to one side all the time.

All i'm saying is that if you are trying to be a better swimmer, bilateral breathing is like #8 on the list of 10 things you can do to be a better swimmer. In case you're wondering, number 10 is 'invent a time machine and start swimming as a 4 year-old.'

That was in the 'directors cut' of the Total Immersion DVD.

In case you're wondering, number 10 is 'invent a time machine and start swimming as a 4 year-old.'

That was in the 'directors cut' of the Total Immersion DVD.

Proof positive that TI is total quackery. Obviously, that should be number one on the list.

Is bilateral breathing The Answer to getting faster in the water? No. Is it part of the answer? It might be. Is it a valuable skill that should be part of every swimmer's repetoire? Yes. Is it hard to learn, and does learning it detract from other training? No.

All things considered, I'd say one should learn it.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Sorry Frank, I made the classic Slowtwitch mistake of ignoring the question and just going off on a counter-argument.

You need to put in the sets where you're working specifically on bilateral breathing. You can't just do a workout and say 'ok, i'm gonna breathe to both sides today.' It takes work, so here's a set:

6x150's w/30 sec. rest.
alternate breathing 3/5/7 per 50.

This means every 3 strokes for the first 50/every 5 strokes for the 2nd 50/and every 7 strokes for the 3rd 50.

This way you not only work your bilateral breathing, you get some hypox in, which helps you aerobically as well.

'Mimic' your good side breathing to your awkward side. Many people breath late, or drop their hand. Assuming you are struggling to your left, hold that reach with your right arm, and just work on it DURING those 150's. That way you can adjust as you get more and more comfortable-and swim bilaterally more and more.

I found that as I work on my bilateral breathing my stroke is becoming more balanced. I still prefer to breath to one side but continue to practice the bilateral because my technique benefited overall.

I have a woman in one of my swim sessions who refuses to breathe except on her right, every 2 strokes. So I gave her a drill set, where she did a whole lot of left-arm 1-arm 25s. This was to force her to breathe to the left. The first few 25s were sheer pain to watch. But she started to adjust, compensate, figure it out. A few weeks of doing this in her drill workout sessions, and she tried bilateral breathing. It still looks very uneven, but she's doing it now.

It would be a mistake to not learn to brethe from both sides. A big one. You do have to adjust to conditions. Waves. Wind. Early morning sun. Sighting. The guy flailling away next to you....
Why wouldn't anyone learn this most basic technique?

Frank

[reply]
Why wouldn't anyone learn this most basic technique?
[/reply]

I was motivited to go to opposite-side breathing as a means to help my (non-breathing side) shoulder problems. Only after I became comfortable with opposite-side breathing did I realize the HUGE benefits to my stroke. My whole swimming "experience" changed when I went to three-stroke bilateral breathing. Everything "felt" different for me.

If I didn't have those shoulder problems, I would have remained happy with my same-side stroke. Ignorance is bliss.

So why do people assume an uneven stroke is somehow worng? If you look at the elites, mild to moderate uneven strokes are very common. I've got a hard time believing that Grant Hackett (mildly asymmetric) and Yuri Prilukov (impressively extremely uneven) would find themselves picking up speed if they just swam with a bit more symmetry.

So why do people assume an uneven stroke is somehow worng? If you look at the elites, mild to moderate uneven strokes are very common.

Interesting point, but I think there's a difference between the uneven stroke of an elite swimmer, who's developed their own technique over thousand and thousands of yards, and that of a novice who's just learning to swim. All things being equal, I think an even stroke is a desirable thing. If, after lots of swimming, one finds themself to have a naturally occuring uneven stroke, so be it. (Likewise, if a new runner exhibited form similar to Paula Radcliffe's, I think it might be worthwhile to try to correct it. If, however, after the runner in question had some experience and time running, and found that their hideous from is what works for them, well, OK.)

Regardless, everyone should be able to breath to both sides.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

So why do people assume an uneven stroke is somehow worng? If you look at the elites, mild to moderate uneven strokes are very common.

As a blanket rule applied blindly to all swimmers, bi-lateral breathing as a method of "improving" the freestyle stroke is not scientifically supported. Asymetrical strokes have won gold in the Olympics and I believe I read once that no elite swimmer ever tested had a fully symetrical stroke. It may work for you and it may not but don't for a minute believe that breathing bi laterally is the "only" correct way to swim freestyle. Anyone who tells you that is just repeating what someone else told them and does not know what they are talking about.

The only reason to breath bi laterally is to improve your vision so it does have some advantages and may be worth pursuing.

For days like that, another good skill to learn is the water polo stroke.

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_________________________________
I'll be what I am
A solitary man

I agree. The fastest freestylers, back in high school, that I saw, had horribly asymetric strokes. Jack Babashoff (Shirley's brother - Shirley went to Olympics) comes to mind. I can't think of other names, but I remember them swimming, wondering how they do it. I think they also had 5 or 7 or maybe some other prime number beat kick!

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Proud member of FISHTWITCH: doing a bit more than fish exercise now.

"Does anyone have any suggestions (beyond the TI basics)? "



I went through this 20 years ago, when I was in my 30's, and after 25 years of breathing right side only. The problem with learning the other side is the same as learning most new motion activities. Just as an example, try throwing a baseball with your non-dominant arm. My left arm throw exactly matches a "girlie" throw.



With any new motion, you have to begin it by thinking each action. During the course of a swim stroke, this usually results in late timing and a mouthful of water. My solution was to anticipate instead of reacting. If I turned my head when I thought I was suppose to, it was always too late. To cure that, I made the mental image of turning my head and trying to put it into my armpit the moment my left hand reached the farthest point of the stroke down by my hip. (You will have to ignore the mental feeling that you are turning way to early.) That "premature" clue got my mouth above the water at the right time and I collected a lot more air than water. After a few thousand strokes, the timing will become more natural, and you will begin to turn your head subconsciously without thinking about it, just like on your current side. And when you master it, you will no longer be able to explain to anyone the simple clues/timing of breathing when swimming to either side as it all becomes so automatic that you aren’t even aware of what you are doing.



Now, the advantages of bilateral breathing:

Stroke symmetry and balance has been covered. Being able to catch glimpses of your stroke when breathing is also extremely helpful in improving your form.

Other big advantages I think are that it teaches you patience in breathing. Every once in a while you will miss a breath in the pool. But when I am in a nice rhythm, I’ll keep in my pattern and wait for the next opposite side breath. This increased patience breeds confidence for when you get into open water mass race starts and you miss more than a couple of breathes with the mash party going on.

I think it also beneficial for when you get that 200 pounder who is camped on your normal breathing side, at a distance which would be declared intimately close in a court of law, and who refuses to move away during the rest of the race.

Lastly, I rarely breath bilateraly in a tri race. I did for a while in my first IM last year as a way of controlling any irrational exuberance, and because I was enjoying myself at the time.

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Behold the turtle! He makes progess only when he sticks his neck out. (James Bryant Conant)
GET OFF THE F*%KING WALL!!!!!!! (Doug Stern)
Brevity is the soul of wit. (William Shakespeare)

I use the water polo stroke (or Tarzan) as a drill to get comfortable looking up. Looking up once or twice every 25 yds while swimming in a pool definitely helps. I used to come to almost a complete stop whenever I looked up during races. Now I'm able to maintain a smother stroke and more momentum when looking up.

Try some single arm swimming, on the problematic side, breathing every other stroke, keeping the other arm straight out in front of you.

The hardest thing for me to overcome while learning same-side breathing was to feel comfortable exhaling when it was time to breathe on the left.

I used a pull bouy to hold my position and pulled early with my right arm to get a breath on the left. Then, after I felt comfortable, I broke the habit of pulling early and dropped the pull bouy. I really had to make a conscious effor to break that habit.

What it has done for me is that it balanced my stroke and now my left shoulder doesn't hurt any more. It also gave me more time to exhale completely before it was time for a breath again.

Did it make me faster? Yes, by about 15 second/100yds but now I can swim that with any breathing pattern 2,3,4 or 5 and my sprints dropped by 10 seconds too.

jaretj

Somewhat related swimming thought: keeping your elbows nice and high when you're in the catch and pull phase of the stroke makes it easier to help you create a zone of protection around your head and upper torso while you swim. As does having a relatively wide point of entry with your hands (which lets your elbow go even wider, helping to push/nudge other swimmers away so they aren't getting too close to your face) Sharp-elbowed wide arms on recovery shield your head while you breathe.

glad to see I'm not the only one taking ironguide's advice on extensive use of the pull buoy and paddles I've forced myself to breath 25 yards left, 25 right for the last couple of months and the left hand breathing almost feels normal now. But, my reason for doing it is a bit different than others.

When I breathed right side only I would get a massive gas cramps in my stomach on my right side...which got worse and worse the longer I swam. This problem would then screw me up for the swim and bike as I'd have a hard time digesting food and fluid, and a lot of times the cramps would completely stop me in my tracks on the run. When I told my doctor about this he suggested that if you have a gas cramp on your right side, then you can lay on your right side and lift your left hip up...this would help force the gas out of the stomach. When he told me that, I thought "shit...breathing on the left would probably be basically the same motion". Since I've made the change, I've had a lot less problems with stomach cramps on long swim sets.

Hopefully this will alleviate most of the problems, since it was always worse in open water swims (no idea why). I just have to be sure to do it come race day and not go back to my old style. As long as I don't freak out during the start and be gasping for breath after 100 yards, I should be fine. We'll see.

To all the bilateral breathing naysayers:

I'm curious if there is anybody here who:

1) Made a difficult switch from same-side breathing to opposite-side, AND

2) after the switch was complete (and you felt comfortable breathing to either side), decided that there was no benefit gained from the experience.

I am only average swimmer, but what I learned from alternating sides is that I am faster on the side that I thought was my weak side. I use the lane line trick every time I swim. Now both sides are almost the same, but when I really want to go fast I am better on the side that I thought I could not swim on.

Just my experience.

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"Why do they keep inventing new ways to celebrate mediocrity" -

1. Practice this as part of drills. If you're trying to make sendoffs or concerned about speed, learning a new component of your stroke can get real frustrating. My experiments at bi-lateral breathing were always in the team practice pool -- forget about sacrificing a few seconds in that environment to 'learn' to swim.

2. I don't do it. I can move around pretty comfortably -- in order to breathe -- on one side without breaking my rhythm/stroke, so I'm not planning to change. But I'm not you.

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__________
"At the end he was staggering into parked cars and accusing his support-van driver of trying to poison him." A description of John Dunbar in the 1st Hawaii Iron Man

I tried bilateral back in college as part of a total stroke rebuild. Coach and I gave it enough time for adaptation. (probably a month and a half of heavy practice and meets)

The other parts of the stroke rebuild stuck, but I went back to right side for 85-95% because I'm asymmetrical enough in the water that breathing on my left side too much significantly slows me down and ups my exertion level in the process. Every 4 strokes for a 200 free and every 2 for longer than that turned out to be optimal for me.

Tell me to go do a 3-5-7-9 breathing pattern set, and I'm perfectly comfortable doing it. But I'm also perfectly slow when that happens.

I have this problem with a lot of my swimmers and it is very hard to change on at least one or two of them a year.

Swim 50 Drill/25 S, the 50 Drill is 25 Left/25 R. The 25 Left is swimming with Left arm only with right arm at your side and breathing to your right and another 25 doing the reverse. Make sure you rotate both directions equally. Ccount your strokes on the Drill 25s. As you become stronger on your weak side, your count should even out. Keeping you arm at your side vs. in front will allow you to rotate like you should. Breathing to your non-stroking side will make sure you rotate to the weak side. (it is a lot easier to rotate to the stroking side.)

Hope that helps.