Bilateral Breathing

[Selkie]

You all were such great help getting me back to swimming freestyle, so I'm coming back for more advice.

I'm a one-sided breather but I want to breathe bilaterally. First, my alignment is screwed up because 1) a very slight case of scoliosis; and 2) weaker left side probably due to broken clav & broken elbow (separate injuries). I'm definitely more comfortable rolling to the right to breathe.

Pleasant effect of swimming: I've notice that my left side (upper body) is getting stronger. My petite sized fitted blouses are getting tight in the shoulder/upper back area, too! lol

Any tips? Any drills I could do to get me more comfortable on the left? Or should I suck it up and hire a swim teacher once the "indoor season" starts?

[alpinerabbit]

While I am not an absolute advocate of TI, go and find some of their videos and do those drills: fish, skating, zipper skating, under- and overswitch.

Accurate body rotation is key to being able to breathe on both sides. Once you have this down, you don't have to do TI exclusively.

While I can't comment on your scoliosis - you're saying it is slight - rotation is mostly from the whole torso (ok, the pros seem to rotate the spine but do we?)
Find your balance on the weak side and learn to rotate, use a high elbow, all that jazz.

[roadie gal]

Practice taking a few breaths on the weaker side as you do laps. Get used to doing that until you can do a length that way. Then start mixing it up as you go along.

[katluvr]

It may be easier for me since I was not a swimme at all and I am just beginning. But I found it quite easy to do...I just count 1, 2, 3. It may be that I had no real swim style before--so nothing to break.
Now if I can get the stroke down AND be albe to not feel so out of breath!

[Alex]

Any tips? Any drills I could do to get me more comfortable on the left? Or should I suck it up and hire a swim teacher once the "indoor season" starts?

Here are some of the things I picked up from the TI DVDs and my instructor. Please bear in mind that I am very new to all of this and I have had six whole swimming lessons so far! I am swimming and breathing bilaterally, so these drills did work for me and maybe they will help you, too.

I realize that some of these things might be far too basic for you, but I'll just toss them out there.

1. If you have standing depth water, bend at the waist and put your face in the water with one arm in front. Then, rotate your head as though you are swimming/breathing. Pay attention to what you see when you are in the breathing position.

2. Swim and rotate to the left side, but do not try to breathe. Just repeatedly swim and move your head as though you were going to breathe. Either stand up, or roll over, or breathe to your strong side when you need air. When you have rotated your head, take note of your position. Is one goggle still in the water? Can you take a mental snapshot of what you see when you breathe to your strong side and then recreate that picture on the other side?

3. When you are ready to try to breathe to your left side, pay attention to how it feels as compared to your right side. If it doesn't feel as good, can you pinpoint why? It's good that you do so well on your right side because you know how it's supposed to feel when you do it correctly. If you can figure out what you are doing differently, it should be easy to correct. For me, I am more comfortable breathing to my left, so I've been doing laps of just breathing to my right. When I compared the two sensations, I realized that I was not leaving my front arm out and high when I was trying to breathe to the right. It was as though I was trying to push down in the water with my left arm to raise myself more to the surface. Once I figured out what I was doing wrong, I had lots of improvement on the right side. After my OWS last weekend, I really wanted to make sure I got bilateral breathing down because the waves were such that if you could only breathe to one side, you were done for.

Alex

[ilima]

Train bilateral but race whatever is comfortable.

[Selkie]

My problem is that I'm very uncomfortable getting my head high enough or in the correct position to breath on my weak side. I'm trying to get used to rotating more to the left, but I've attempted to breathe on that side only a couple times.

I found a lady who teaches TI at $65 a lesson (includes lesson & pool fee)--I'm seriously taking a class and seeing if it's worth it to continue. She recommends taking at least 5 to learn/do the drills and incorporate it all into freestyle.

Thanks everyone for the advice. I'll keep working at it in the meantime.

[alpinerabbit]

You probably know that you do not turn your head to breathe. You turn your body. If it is uncomfortable, it's probably a balance issue - how you balance in the water. The drills taught in TI can adjust this.

You can also try to think "breathe into your armpit". When the Elbow is highest.

[katluvr]

Body roll.
I just had Tri swimming class last night (not sure if it is TI based) but all the triatheletes go to "Coach Joe".
Body roll helps get our arms out and also roll to breath.
He doesn't even work on bilateral breathing until he can get his students head down and a good body roll.

[Selkie]

I roll to breathe and have no problems doing it on the right.

Alpine, you're right that it's a balance-in-the-water issue and a comfort of doing things on the stronger (right) side.