Recently finished reading this book (very good read, highly recommended). One thing struck me as conversation-worthy for slowtwitchers. One of the swimmers, a guy that eventually made the Olympic team, always breathed unilaterally. Then yesterday, I watched a little of a swim meet on Espn, I think it was the Texas Longhorns. Anyway, a girl swam butterfly breathing the whole time to her left, which I have never seen. I also am a unilateral swimmer. I know there has been much debate about unilateral vs. bilateral breathing. I know that one of the advantages of bilateral breathing can be found in a tri. The swimmer can sight from both sides, and whether the swim course follows a clockwise or counterclockwise movement is no matter. Heres how I look at it. If the bouys are on my left in a race, I’ll have a good time (relatively speaking, I’m no Mark Spitz). If they are on the right, I have to pick my head up out of the water a few times and maybe correct my trajectory here and there. This, of course, would add some time to my swim, but we’re talking maybe a minute or two. The thing is, I’m fine with that.
My question: If an Olympic swimmer and a collegiate swimmer can swim breathing only to one side, is it really that bad if I do? Will I really become a better swimmer if I really put time into breathing bilaterally? Or will the time gain not be worth all the effort?
I’m definately no swimming expert, but I found that with one sided breathing my direction was always pulled to one side. I taught myself who to breath on both sides, which was hard to do at first, but it’s made it easier to swim in a strait line rather than going off to one side.
You can breathe unilaterally if your stroke is well balanced. The argument for bilateral breathing in training for most triathletes. (i.e. relatively new to serious swimming) is that it helps to keep the stroke balanced and helps you keep swimming in a straight line (then you don’t have to sight as much). I would race unilaterally. But train frequently bilaterally - it will be good for your stroke.
You should be able to breathe comfortably on both sides in open water situations because it really helps for navigation purposes. But if you’re a reasonably straight swimmer, breathing every 15 strokes or so to the off side is enough, IMO.
As for butterfly side breathers, you don’t see very many of them because it takes a lot of neck/spine flexibility to do it so your arms don’t go lopsided. But it you can somehow make it work, it can be faster than traditional head up fly breathing. Mel Stewart used to hold the world record in the 200M butterfly, and was a definite side breather.
There’s video of Mel Stewart v. Michael (The Albatross) Gross at the 1991 world championships here:
Adam is right If you become comfortable or reasonably comfortable with breathing on your off side you can use that in tris also for occasional sighting and for those occasions when you are swimming beside someone that is compromising your breathing until you can navigate away or around them. My attitude is I need all the air I can get and breathing bilaterally you don’t get but 1/2 as much and that has been confirmed to me by several swim coaches. Do train to breath on both sides using bilaterally breathing and just breathing on your off side. Happy Swimming
I swam fly breathing to the side when I was younger. I found that I didn’t have to lift as high then. But like the other poster said, it is more difficult to maintain the balance of your fly when you breathe to the side. I don’t breathe to the side much anymore because my fly isn’t anywhere near as strong or smooth so I can’t afford the slight imbalance.
You should be able to breathe comfortably on both sides in open water situations because it really helps for navigation purposes. But if you’re a reasonably straight swimmer, breathing every 15 strokes or so to the off side is enough, IMO.
Mel Stewart used to hold the world record in the 200M butterfly, and was a definite side breather.
I totally agree with Jill. There are many conditions that make bilateral breathing worth getting comfortable with. I tend to switch back and forth during a race depending on where the bouys are, where the sun is on the horizon, if the wind is blowing chop into my face when I breath on a particular side, where my nearby competitors are, etc.
Did I ever tell you about the time I swam with Melvin Stewart? Well, WITH him may not be exactly the right word. The Charlotte UltraSwim meet is held at the pool where I swim (Mecklenburg County Aquatic Center). This was around the '92/'93 time frame. The Monday after the meet a friend and I were finishing up our workout when Melvin came up and asked if we would mind sharing our lane. Of course we said “Take your gold medal and get your own lane!” NOT! So, he gets in and starts kicking. His childhood coach (who coaches here) walks over to us and says “Thanks for sharing. I don’t think he’ll get in your way. He’s going to kick a mile before he starts his workout.”
Finished the book myself last week, excellent book. Anyway, you cannot compare a swimmer whose event is 400m at the most with your 1.2 to 2.4 mile swim. Bilateral is much more comfortable for long distance swimming.
Unless there’s some physical impediment keeping you from breathing bilaterally, my serious recommedation would be that you learn how to do it. It’s just a learned skill ( meaning it just takes getting used to ), and it’s a relatively simple thing to master. Why *wouldn’t *you want to do it?
Besides the advantages to bilateral breathing already noted, I’ll add that swimming in rough water is dang near impossible 50% of the time if you can only breath on one side. Although if you only swim in lakes, this may not be an issue for you.
I guess someone has to defend breathing to one side. I was a collegiate swimmer (div III, not the big leagues) and I can alternate breathe, but choose to breathe to one side when I race triathlons. I pasted below part of an article here on slowtwitch by Mark Montgomery. If you know anything about him you know he is no slouch in the water. He argues that you have better oxygen utilization breathing to one side. I have found this to be true for me. Particularly in races shorter than IM distance. When I am really going hard, I find that I take in more O2 breathing to one side. Of course you need to be able to do so without any detriment to your stroke balance. Here is the excerpt and the link:
“Once you have established the pack you are going to swim in, there are many things you can do to help yourself get a relaxing, fast swim. I know a lot of you are coached to alternate breath every third stroke. That’s okay for training, but I never do in a race. Even breathing every stroke you can only exchange about 80% of your oxygen, so why put yourself into more oxygen debt? It’s okay to know how to breathe on both sides, just don’t hold your breath by alternating.”
Comparing collegiate and olympic swimmers to triathlon is apples to oranges. Besides the open water/pool differences, virtually every (all?) college and olympic swimming events are anaerobic. I don’t think many of us go anaerobic for a 1/2 or full IM swim.
Well when I swam pool miles, (1650s) it was always breathe every two. Every three just didn’t get be enough air. I’ve got a tiny little rib cage, and wee little lungs. If I breath every 3-4, I go anaerobic quick.
And the best distance swimmer on our team was a 16 flat 1650 swimmer with a very pronounced lope, and he breathed right exclusively.
Lope- Asymmetrical swimming. Watch some swimmers, and and there will be people who definitely let the dominant side of their body do more of the work. A small to moderate amount of assymetry isn’t necessarily a bad thing in the pool, and there are some swimmers who have a lot of success despite looking a little bit lopsided in the water.
As for Evans, she was a freak, and I mean that in the kindest, most complementary sort of way.
She also kept her arms completely straight during her recovery. I remember my coach saying that her success made coaching the girls to try and improve their strokes that much harder.
Yep, one really can’t get enough breathing every three strokes to stay aerobic for high-intensity distance. (No, that’s not a contradiction.) I train bilateral, sometimes race tris that way, but no way can I do that in a shoot-for-PR pool swim. Sometimes I breathe left on the way down, right on the way back. That is, alway breathe looking at the same side of the pool, just to avoid getting into that permanently tilted position. But even then I have a preferred side, and sometimes just give in to it racing 1500 or 1650.
And I too recall some amazingly fast distance guys with lopes. Whatever works!
To clarify, a high V02 max does at all correlate to ‘not needing’ much air. Actually (in theory), a high V02 max could require MORE breathing, but would also mean the athlete is capable of producing more work.
A high V02 max = a high no. of grams of OXYGEN (not “air”) extracted FROM from the air inspired by the lungs, all per unit of body weight per unit of time.
In lay terms, an athlete with a high V02 max is highly effective at extracting oxygen from the air and, most critically, transporting it via the circulatory system to the working heart and especially the working muscles.
