Years ago when I started practicing better form in my swim, I got very comfortable with a four count on my breathing. The bad part of that is I got into this habit of only breathing over my right shoulder. Of course, I don’t have to explain how this could end up being a problem in open water swimming.
This year I have been making a concerted effort to breath over my left shoulder as well. It’s getting better, but it’s still not as natural feeling as the right shoulder. The best way I can describe is that when breathing over the right, everything is one fluid motion. But breathing over the left, I have to think about each movement I’m doing through the entire stroke. This ends up in a kind of jerky, uncoordinated movement, and still quite often an incomplete breath or mouth full of water.
But it’s getting better. I need to be able to breathe off both shoulders. Even if I’m still a little slower on the left. Sometimes rough water wins the day. Have to be able to accommodate. Practice, practice, practice.
It took me nearly 1.5 years of regular swimming to get my breath-left stroke to equal the speed of my breath-right stroke, and as well so that it didn’t have these weird glitches that made it hard to breathe or showed up on camera as problematic. It’s still def not perfect, but I’m now the same speed on both sides.
Sadly though, my overall top speed and race results have NOT improved from being able to bilateral breathe equally, and I find in most races I just end up breathing to the side I was initially strongest with, which is breathe-right. Still, I’m glad I learned, since at my age around 50, if I stop using it, I lose it - was shocked when I had an injury and couldn’t swim for several weeks, and when I came back I could barely crank my neck to the left to even breathe at all in the water!
In my decades of triathlons in pools, lakes, the ocean, and the occasional river, I can count on two hands the total number of times I breathed over my right shoulder. And those times were when I wanted to see where was my competition. I typically had the fastest swim split in my AG.
It took me nearly 1.5 years of regular swimming to get my breath-left stroke to equal the speed of my breath-right stroke, and as well so that it didn’t have these weird glitches that made it hard to breathe or showed up on camera as problematic. It’s still def not perfect, but I’m now the same speed on both sides.
Sadly though, my overall top speed and race results have NOT improved from being able to bilateral breathe equally, and I find in most races I just end up breathing to the side I was initially strongest with, which is breathe-right. Still, I’m glad I learned, since at my age around 50, if I stop using it, I lose it - was shocked when I had an injury and couldn’t swim for several weeks, and when I came back I could barely crank my neck to the left to even breathe at all in the water!I think I’m in the same boat. I expect on race day, that I will end up breathing over my right shoulder because it still just feels more natural. But it absolutely doesn’t hurt to get proficient breathing over that left shoulder. I have had one or two events where the wind and waves made it difficult to maintain a natural rhythm on the right shoulder.
It took me nearly 1.5 years of regular swimming to get my breath-left stroke to equal the speed of my breath-right stroke, and as well so that it didn’t have these weird glitches that made it hard to breathe or showed up on camera as problematic. It’s still def not perfect, but I’m now the same speed on both sides.
Sadly though, my overall top speed and race results have NOT improved from being able to bilateral breathe equally, and I find in most races I just end up breathing to the side I was initially strongest with, which is breathe-right. Still, I’m glad I learned, since at my age around 50, if I stop using it, I lose it - was shocked when I had an injury and couldn’t swim for several weeks, and when I came back I could barely crank my neck to the left to even breathe at all in the water!I think I’m in the same boat. I expect on race day, that I will end up breathing over my right shoulder because it still just feels more natural. But it absolutely doesn’t hurt to get proficient breathing over that left shoulder. I have had one or two events where the wind and waves made it difficult to maintain a natural rhythm on the right shoulder.
I do think that this argument being able to breathe away from either wind or sun will help someday.
I honestly haven’t had a race where it’s made a difference yet since my most of my races have all been in pretty calm water without chop, but I practice OWS in a body of water where it gets windy enough for windsurfers to come out regularly during the afternoon, and when the chop kicks up, man, it’s super helpful to be able to breathe on the side where it’s easier. (Weirdly, it’s not always the side away from the waves, sometimes it’s easier to breathe into the wave side, I dunno why, but it does happen.) The one race I did where there was actually a LOT of chop was last year at Alcatraz, but the chop was on my native breath-right side, so I didn’t have to switch it up. Normally I do alternate every 100-200 in OWS breathing side just because that’s the way I practice now.
I can breath on both sides and standard cruising is every third stroke. However, I find it tough to breath every two strokes on my left side but can do that forever on right side. It has something to do with how my left hip and left leg interact with rest of my body. I can’t really use from my left lumbar spine down to toes well because of previous spine injury, but even before that I was not symmetrical on both sides . Don’t worry about it, but just have enough ability to have the option in open water for short durations.
In my decades of triathlons in pools, lakes, the ocean, and the occasional river, I can count on two hands the total number of times I breathed over my right shoulder. And those times were when I wanted to see where was my competition. I typically had the fastest swim split in my AG.
Ya, same here, I almost always breath to my left and can not recall any times where I actually had to breath right per se.
im glad you and klehner say that because to be honest i always kind of thought the ‘breathe to see your competition’ is a bit of a myth, or breathe away from the chop etc. I do occasionally breathe on my left, but that is either going into a tumble turn, out of a turn and doing a double breath, or mostly just when you see someone with ahem visual qualities
for all the one sided breathers, try this - lay on your belly and then do a breath to your preferred side and then the other. pretty funny how much looser one side of your neck is haha
im glad you and klehner say that because to be honest i always kind of thought the ‘breathe to see your competition’ is a bit of a myth, or breathe away from the chop etc. I do occasionally breathe on my left, but that is either going into a tumble turn, out of a turn and doing a double breath, or mostly just when you see someone with ahem visual qualities
for all the one sided breathers, try this - lay on your belly and then do a breath to your preferred side and then the other. pretty funny how much looser one side of your neck is haha
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I breathe to my left always and breathe every second stroke almost always. Due to an accident decades ago turning my head to my right is limited and it makes breathing to my right throw my body out of position in the water.I can sight in all conditions no problems and if I have to, can breathe to my right but that is very rare. I have been a FOP triathlon swimmer throughout my triathlon life and breathing to one side only has never been an issue. (I also never do flip turns but that is a different story)
Back when I did tri, I was a FOP triathlon swimmer and also only breathed to my right. Sometimes breathed to my left in training to work on symmetric flexibility, like you said, but never in anything serious.
I used to swim only on my right and when I got into Tri I tried to get used to breathing on both sides.
I’ve found that breathing every 3 is what helped me the most to get there.
Eventually I got to the point that in a pool I can swim either side without effort. Nowadays whenever possible I alternate the breathing side for each lap. Effectively I always look to the same side of the pool. This is actually particularly useful in outdoor pools in summer when one side might have the sun coming up or down.
In a race however I would always swim on my favourite side unless absolutely necessary, which doesn’t happen much at all.
I had the issue for my first year of swimming (started as an adult like many here). Breathing on one side has been a problem for me in some races, due to positioning of the sun and waves. I also had pain in one shoulder from swimming unbalanced.
My solution was to simply force myself to learn to breathe on the off side. This has come in handy. Now if I am swimming laps, I look to the same side of the pool, so I am breathing 50% to each side. The pain never came back when I started doing this.
During races, I still favor my stronger side, but it’s great to have the off side when needed.
