I just started training for my first sprint. I’m curious as to how often you breathe while swim training and racing. Let’s say you were at an 80% pace. Is your preference every full stroke?
Thanks for the help.
If I were learning how to swim again, I’d recommend bilateral breathing every three strokes.
That being said, I probably would breathe every 2 strokes (same side breathing). Bad habits are just hard to break. 
Personally, while racing it doesn’t pay to hold your breath. This is an aerobic event after all. Breath every stroke if that is what you are comfortable with.
As for training, it would be wise to dedicate portions of your workout (maybe an 8th of your workout distance) to bilateral and/or hypoxic sets so that you can handle occasions during a race when you get a mouth full of water, need to navigate, etc.
Bilateral is the way to go. You will swim much straighter, and your body will be come much more efficient. Focus on your technique and don’t worry about your speed. Relax and just stroke, the speed will come on its own. Often, in training, I breathe every fifth stroke just to get my body used to being efficient with oxygen. It takes me 16 strokes to get to the other end of a 25 yard pool, so that means 5 breaths if breathing every 3, or 3 breaths if breathing every five per pool length. I learned this way, and have always breathed this way and it works great. Your body can get used to almost anything, so train the correct way from the beginning.
----->Trent
If you start to feel like you’re about to pass out…then would be a good time to breathe. Sounds odd but trying to alter everything you’ve ever done (don’t fix it if it aint broke) troubles me. If you want to change it…do it gradually. Otherwise…breathe when you feel the need.
i’d learn how to be comfortable with your stroke while being able to breathe on either side, but in a race or even on long workouts, i’d use whatever pattern felt most comfortable. there are many advantages to being able to stroke efficiently while breathing on either side–it can aid with drafting, if there is a tough sun coming in from one side, etc…
personally, 90% of the time i am swimming, i breathe off the same side, every other stroke. i do devote a portion of each workout to some bilateral breathing though(3,4, and 5 stroke breaths), just to make sure i am comfortable.
another argument for bilateral breathing is so that you even out the stresses on your shoulders. even with good mechanics, you put slightly extra stress on the shoulder opposite the side on which you breathe.
i mostly breathe every 3rd stroke, but will throw in an ‘extra’ breathe every other stroke as needed.
Every third stroke…
maybe a dumb question but an example of every 3rd stroke would be:
right stroke (with breath), left stroke, right stroke, left stroke (with breath)…correct?
Not a dumb question-
right stroke (with breath), left stroke, right stroke, left stroke (with breath)…
This is correct, if you need to take more breaths fine. But you shoild work twards this, once you get the hang of it, it is the best way.
breath every 3 at the most. you get the feeling that you need a breath not from lack of oxygen, but from a high level of carbon dioxide in your lungs. so if you breath out slowly and steadily, you will not feel the urge to breath as often. also, when taking your breath, breath easy and avoid gasping. it sounds simple, but when i’m in the pool, this is just people who are struggling do. hope this helps.
bob
I know that people like to suggest bilateral breathing for a number of good reasons, but I was a real swimmer at one point in my life and I never could feel like I got enough air that way. Yeah, I know, people would say I’m not relaxed enough - I did a Half last summer with a 2000m swim in 26min and change and a HR of 110 - 115, so I know relaxation, and I still breathed every left or right arm. I think if you feel like you need the air, learn to breathe every stroke on one side on both the left and right, and switch sides as conditions require.
Good luck in your sprint,
Deke
For the most part I always breathed every two strokes, to the right side. I was a good swimmer in my own right, i swam for 12 years and had my share of good results. It was the only way i could get into a good rythm for any distance, i had a damn near perfect stroke though, and spent about 4 hours a day perfecting it for a few years. Most triathletes can’t do this though, so do whatever feels efficient for you.
Try swimming some days your first 500 breathing every cycle (breathe to the right one length and to the left the next.) Other days try every cycle and a half (3 arm strokes) for your first 500. Try to be smooth, especially on your every 3-arm stroke days. See which gives you your best speed/heart-rate combination. Often the latter, with a smooth stroke is just as fast, or faster, even though you feel slower.
Another ex-fish every two breather here 90% of the time. I’ve messed around with trying to bilateral breathe, and I’m just faster with less effort every two. And yes, I’m a very visible loper (dominant side does more work) if you watch my stroke so the right side breathing works best with that.
Get to the point where you can breathe every 2,3,4, or 5 “on command” without discomfort. Good to develop that sort of discipline and control in the water. After that, do what’s most comfortable to you.
While it is correct to say a higher level of CO2 makes you feel like you have to breathe, it’s not the CO2 level in the lungs making you feel like this. It’s CO2’s stimulation of peripheral (acutely) as well as central (sub-acutely or chronically) chemoreceptors. Peripheral chemoreceptors are located in the carotid and aortic bodies. Central receptors are located in the medullary region of the brain. Interestingly, if you were able to get your CO2 up for long periods of time, your body becomes less affected by a subsequent rise in CO2. THis is due mostly to an increased buffering capacity (think of C02 like your would think of acid…because CO2 turns into carbonic acid very easily in water…and water is what your body has a lot of!) in your cerebral spinal fluid as an adaptation to the higher level of carbonic acid. As your cerebral spinal fluid gradually holds on to more buffering molecules, you don’t have as much of a change in acidity when CO2 rises, so you have less of an urge to breathe when your CO2 rises. (THis is why people with chronic lung disease can actually die from breathing in too much oxygen…they have gradually lost the normal drive to take a breath in response to a rise in CO2…give these people enough oxygen to take away their hypoxic-induced desire to breathe, and they don’t breathe. CO2 narcosis sets in, and they die. I guess that’s too much info, huh?)
Anyway, it isn’t the CO2 in you lungs that make you “feel” like you have to breathe. Just like it “feels” your lungs aren’t able to keep up with your demand for oxygen when you are exercising, in reality, it is a result of your body demanding more cardiac output (blood flow) in response to heavy exercise. That lung-burning “feeling” isn’t really your lungs, it’s your nervous systems’ way of stimulating the breathing muscles maximally…weird, huh?
As far as how you should breathe during the swim stroke…I say ALL THE TIME! I can’t ever get enough air! Swimming should be done on the land so that I can breathe enough! Don’t you realize I could DROWN out here! I’m not really quite that bad, but, I certainly don’t swim well enough to give a qualified answer to THAT question.
I, too, am an ex-swimmer (and every so often, a “current” swimmer). I also breathe every two strokes – for most of my training and all of my races. Every few days, though, I will do a hypoxic set… something like 5x100 (yards), breathing once in lap 1, twice in laps 2 and 3, and once again in lap 4 (6 breaths total). As several have pointed out, this is good for balancing the stroke, but also provides benefits in hypoxic training.
Interesting, I have found that most righties like to breathe to the left and lefties to the right.
In the race I would breathe every two strokes (every right arm pul for example). I would make sure though that you are comfortable breathing on both sides and can do the race using either side (this helps for sighting, drafting, dealing with waves etc.). Also, if you are just learning or upgrading your swimming - start doing bilateral now. Do not become like us ex-swimmers who are stuck with our bad habits. In the long run, bilateral breathing in your trainging is better for your stroke and your lungs.
i am also a relative newbie to this tri thing, and swimming was/is my biggest limiter. this winter i bit the bullet and worked on several things hardcore. first, become comfortable in the water. no style of breathing will be comfortable if you always feel like you’re going to drown. i too started off breathing on one side only (right w/breath, left arm, right w/breath). i decided that this just wasn’t cutting it, so i worked on bilateral breathing. the 1st day i tried it, i felt horribly awkward. but, that same day i did a little 100M time trial, bilateral vs. the old way, and sure enough the bilateral 100M was 4 seconds faster. while this was missing several key controls, i figured if i felt that awkward yet went that much faster, imagine what would happen if i learned good technique. in the end, bilateral breathing allows me to lengthen my stroke become much more relaxed. but just remember, it takes time!!! your times will get slower before they get faster!!! if you always breath on one side now, first learn to breath on the other side efficiently before trying both. i did this by using flippers to do one arm freestyle drills until i became comfortable on my left side. hope this babble helps.
My mother started me swimming at 5 years old…I always breathed to the left…I believe my lats are imbalanced to this day because of it…did a workout this morning w/250s…first 150 breathe to the non-dominant side(right)…last 100 breathe to dominant side(left)I have never felt more awkaward in my life…or tired swimming freestyle.