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!

---

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.

---

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.

---

"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.

---

__________
"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.