Look, I’m not arguing that breathing 2 isn’t a good thing for most, that’s what I do. But, if a coach and athlete make the decision to go with something else, that something else isn’t automatically a bad decision. //

Ok, I get it. When I swam, every coach and swimmer held their breaths at least every 4 in a. 100. Probably by the time you were swimming, it was 25% less. Nowadays you have to either look back 2 years, or if you look at today, it is lean pickings on finding someone that breaths like that anymore. A few skip one now and again, but days are gone where you train and race every 4 or more. It is a very apparent graph to what is done, and presumably for a very good reason. I accept that not "all" have adopted it yet, probably take another year or three. But focusing on the now extreme outliers, and somehow trying to shoehorn in that it is good for them because they do well, that is just ignoring the other 95% who have changed, and done so successfully.


For every guy you can find in the archives recently, I will find a dozen+ to counter him, or her. Nobody gets to race outside the laws of physiology, and pointing to an outlying success here and there doesnt change that. People win with handicaps in this world, but it is not ideal.. that's all...

You’re absolutely correct, no one gets to race outside the bounds of physiology. No one gets to race outside the bounds of physics either. Right now, unless we have evidence to the contrary it’s best to go with the assumption that the best in the world probably know what they’re doing at an individual level. And if breathing 4 is what they do in races, they’ve probably tested that over and over in practice.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Well the best in the world does every 2 strokes now, so there is that..(-;

One thing I noticed pretty early on was that Ian Thorpe always breathed every two strokes - and alternated each lap so that he could see his fastest opponent :)

https://www.google.com/...5tcZ0WxnnIALnsrZUPCJ

Being an Australian I am a bit biased though.

If you breath all of your air out any resonanly fit low body fat person will sink to the bottom of the pool.
It is how boyancy works.
A swimmer swimming with a competent stroke on both sides will ride higher in the water with left side breathing than right side breathing.

Most people are taught to time breathing with right arm and cannot breath left side with as little disruption to the stroke as their first learned side so never get to feel the higher position left side breathing gives due to stroke errors.

"A swimmer swimming with a competent stroke on both sides will ride higher in the water with left side breathing than right side breathing."


A theory easily disproved by observing a swimmer during an arm extension drill with a swimmer on their side. No matter which side is uppermost the only exposed bit of the swimmer is the shoulder and upper part of the arm. The whole of the chest is under water. Archimedes would tell us that bouyancy is dependant on the amount of water displaced by the whole of the outside of the chest. Nothing to do with the distribution of air within the chest. As I said earlier yours was an interesting anatomical point, that's all.

There’s more that keeps a swimmer up that air in the lungs. Movement through the water keeps a swimmer up. A swimmer won’t sink immediately like a rock when all the air is exhaled. It’s actually impossible to exhale all the air: there’s about 1l of Reserve in the lungs anyway.

As for not breathing at the end of a 100-200m race, I contend that it’s not that the swimmers don’t need to (the aforementioned 15-20 second delay in delivering O2 to muscles). For gas exchange, you NEED to breathe at the end of a long sprint effort (100-400m swim, 400-800 run). You need to have a 1-1 ratio. If you don’t inhale, you will run out of air to exhale. If you don’t exhale, you won’t be unloading CO2, which will lead to a very rapid fall in blood pH, which will at best affect your effort, but at worst lead to blackout or death.

In terms of breathing to one side all the time, symmetry is not the issue. Arms will do different things based on the posture, each contributing to the strength of the stroke that will not necessarily be better if the stroke is completely symmetrical. Here’s how that works: take a right-side breather. The left arm reaches out slightly more because there is a slightly longer time on the left side during a right-side breath. The left-side catch is a bit longer, a bit more powerful at the top of the stroke. The right-side stroke is a bit shorter, and sets the cadence, and has a stronger push-through at the bottom, again because of the breath.

Bilateral breathing in distance races in the pool or OWS is only important for the swimmer to occasionally look at position or buoys. Disregard completely what Rowdy Gaines yells out (“she can’t see her because she’s breathing on the wrong side!”). A swimmer can see a bit to the non-breathing side anyway, and any smart swimmer knows and remembers where another swimmer is based on the previous length. Being completely practical, even with the sun or waves in your face, you’ll STILL breathe to your favorite side.

My advice, take it or leave it (written as a :55 IM swimmer, multi-time OW winner, multi-time USMS distance national champion and top-10, college swimming coach, Masters Coach): focus on the actual mechanical parts of swimming, and breathe to your natural side while you get the stroke smoothed out because you need the O2, and occasionally breathe to the other side so you can at least be comfortable looking around you.

Thanks - I was starting to think I was the only one out of step!

I’m old enough that bi-lateral was a new thing - but I learned it and liked it from the time I got to masters. I’ll do ‘ base miles’ with bi-lateral and I think there are several advantages ( at least good reasons to have it in the tool bag). I swim straighter, am perfectly comfortable breathing to either side and I believe my body position and stroke mechanics are better on a stroke I don’t breathe than when I lift / turn my head for a breath.

There are race benefits to all of these - and as Bobajobb mentioned, if I do miss a breath in a race scrum, I’m used to going a bit longer.

For intervals and harder race efforts I definitely go to a single-side mode - then I feel like I’m on an oxygen boost and it’s that much sweeter. Even in a race though, if I get in some clear water following some good feet - I’ll go to bi-lateral. For me I know I’m at a good sustainable pace when if I can hold a bi-lateral rhythm.

I’m not the first guy to T1 - but there are always a lot of bikes when I get there! Then I can get a good look at your setup when you pass me on the way to T2. ;-)

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" I take my gear out of my car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafes. Non-racers. The emptiness of of their lives shocks me. "
(opening lines from Tim Krabbe's The Rider , 1978

Is it true Michael Phelps, and other high level swimmers lactate build up is much lower than normal?

Also that a number of higher level swimmers can via nature as well as nurture withstand higher levels of lactate than others?

Thank you for for your help and advice.

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

No problem. I hope you get things sorted. Cheers M.

No, lactate is produced in greater amounts in trained athletes. The physiology shows how this works: lactate is part of the chemical reactions that turn substrate (fuels like fat and carbs) into energy. Greater amounts of lactate mean that more muscle is utilizing more fuel for energy.

What is true is that trained athletes more quickly convert lactate back into fuel. In lay terms, that’s “buffering.” Lactate converts to pyruvate, which converts back to glucose or glycogen (in reduced amounts after each cycle). So, it’s not true that lactate is a waste product. Higher amounts in live conditions, ie, during exercise, means that more power in more muscles is being created. Elevated levels for a long time show that the athlete isn’t as efficient at converting it back to fuel.

The breath holding at the end of a race is simply because there is less drag from the head if it is midline and both arms are working symmetrically. I haven't seen a 400m runner hold his/her breath at the end of a race. Breathing during a race is definitely important.



It has not been my experience at all that the left side catch of a right sided breather is "a bit more powerful at the top of the stroke". If anything I've found that the first part of the left arm catch of a right sided breather is wasting power supporting the head up. What you have described is what I would call a fault in technique.



I agree here only because although we can all strive for symmetry, the body is an assymetric machine and we have to play to our strengths and weaknesses. I assume by favorite side you also mean faster side.



An impressive palmares, equal if not better than some posters no doubt, but I've always regarded logical, thoughtful insights, preferably based on some evidence, as more important. After all a good swimmer is not necessarily a good coach and vice versa as personal bias has a habit on influencing practice. Can we agree that the OP should see somebody to analyse his stroke and profer some corrective advice?

Hey Mark, how is Ian doing these days, know he had a bad patch mentally there for awhile. Here is the race that I loved the most, old vs new, and a passing of the torch. And imagine if they were all wearing the same jammers in that race, dudes had no idea the advantage Ian had with that full suit of his. Look at the underwater shots where all the air is trapped and floating him like a buoy! Not to mention the full body compression, but this was 04, and those things were not fully understood at the time..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X0ih5iMJoc

Monty I only know what is available in the press. He commentates at the big meets and was visible during our marriage equality debates in federal parliament. Watching the way both Hackett and Thorpe made their transition to civilian life was not great. More seems to being done to help essentially young kids move from the top of the mountain to a more normal life these days.
The video was great. Suit? What suit?