Bilateral Breathing

[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.

[katluvr]

Oh yeah one other thing...are you blowing out your entire breath BEFORE you come up to breathe? That is a hard one for me.

[colby]

One of the body roll drills my coach had me use was putting a kickboard between my thighs above my knees like a fin, and feeling it "slap" the water. It should slap at even intervals on the right and the left as you swim. It also helps me become really aware of tight hip flexors - I have a new respect for how your hips move apart when you swim.

I have also practiced taking 3 strokes then rolling to my back, taking 3 strokes then rolling to my stomach, then on the way back doing it the opposite way (start with the other arm).