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- Welcome back to Triathlon Training Explained
powered by Training Beats.
Now, as you can see this week we have headed to the pool
up at Team Bath training centre
because we're gonna be delving into bilateral breathing.
- Bilateral is otherwise known as both sides.
So, simply put bilateral breathing is breathing
to both your left hand side and to your right hand side.
You might find that you actually have
a preferential side that you like to breathe to,
you're comfortable breathing to both sides,
or actually you just can't breathe through one side at all.
- Yeah, well we're gonna be taking a closer look
at the technique of breathing,
and then the how and why
you want to master bilateral breathing.
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You might be completely happy breathing to just one side,
but there are occasions when undoubtedly
it is useful to be able to swap sides.
Say for example, you're lane swimming and you have
to swim in the other direction and you want to be able
to keep an eye on where the lane rope is.
Or for me personally, if I'm swimming in a pool
that's got no lane ropes for example
and I need to see where the wall is
to know that I'm going in a straight line.
I'll be breathing on the right one side,
and then I'll need to swap to breathe on the other side.
- However most relevantly perhaps for triathlon,
bilateral breathing really comes in handy
in the open water scenario.
You might well have glare, sun, waves, chop,
or even just lots of people to any one of your sides
and the ability to be able to breathe to the other
will really be able to save you an awful lot
of time and effort throughout the course of the race.
- Bilateral breathing once perfected can help keep
your stroke smooth and symmetrical and it also helps
to work your core and your shoulders evenly,
and if for example you have an injury for some reason
then you can just breathe to whichever side
is more comfortable for that.
- And also if for example, you miss an extra breathe
or when you're racing you're under pressure,
I often try and sneak an extra breathe
so breathe to one side
and then directly breathe to the other side.
It's not too easy so I wouldn't necessarily
recommend it but it's an option.
- As we've mentioned bilateral breathing means
breathing to either side, but there's no rule that says
how often you have to breathe.
So, it doesn't necessarily have to be every three strokes.
For example, you could breathe every two strokes
concentrating on the right hand side then hold your breathe
for three, move it to the left,
do a few on that side, et cetera.
Or, say you're concentrating on doing drills or form
or you're doing pull away, you're not gonna need
quite as much oxygen and you might find
that you're happy to breathe every five strokes.
- So that's enough discussing why to do bilateral breathing.
Let us have a look at the how.
Now the key to being able to breathe comfortably
when swimming is very closely linked
to how we rotate our body
when we're swimming the front crawl stroke.
For more information on this check out the video
where we focus purely on rotation
and find that in the description below.
You're going to need good mobility through your trunk
and your shoulder and your neck regions
but having said that, once you've mastered the art
of the rotatio, you really shouldn't need to move
your head that much, just a subtle tilt to both sides.
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- Okay, well I think it's time we took a look
at the drills that will get you feeling
comfortable breathing on either side.
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All right, for this first one we're gonna strip it
right back and we're gonna take our arms out all together.
But, don't worry you are gonna be allowed to use some fins.
So, this is gonna be over-exaggerating the amount
of rotation that you'd actually need
in your normal stroke,
but it should at least help to give you the feel.
So, it's gonna be kicking only
and you're gonna have one arm fully extended
and the other arm by your side.
Now, the extended arm needs to be the one
that's the lower side, and the arm by your side
is gonna rest on top.
So, if you imagine you're parallel
to the wall or the lane rope
and then your underneath arm is gonna be extended
as a long underneath your other arm on top,
and you can really focus purely on that rotation
for one length in one direction,
swap over, and come back on the other side.
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- So, for this single arm drill you can leave the fins on
if you want as it's gonna make it a lot easier
to focus on you're form because you're only gonna
be using the one arm.
Your speed arm needs to be kept beside your side,
and that'll help encourage the rotation because without
that you're gonna be really struggling
to create the power in your stroke.
This is when breathing gets harder
unless you've got enough rotation.
You're gonna be breathing to the opposite side
of your pulling arm, so as you're pulling your arm through
the water think about your body.
You're rotating the opposite direction which should mean
that your head doesn't have to move that much
to get the air required to take your breath.
- Right, now, we're going to incorporate
both arms but it's not yet full stroke.
This is still very much a drill.
You're gonna pause between every stroke so when
your one arm is extended, one arm is by your side.
You're gonna hold that position for six kicks.
So, your body will be full rotated so you're parallel
to the wall and then you turn over to the other side
having done a stroke and hold for six kicks again.
If you want you can use fins, but they are optional.
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- So now is the time to put the stroke back together
without having to focus on the timing of your breathing.
And, that's where the snorkel comes in really useful
as it allows you to keep your head completely still
while swimming but without actually having to worry
about your breathing.
And if you do this following the previous drills
that we've talked about, you don't really have to think
about the rotation so much
because you'd over-exaggerating it before-hand.
Now, we should hopefully find that the correct amount
should really feel like your new normal.
- All right this one is a generic breathing drill
that will help you to relax.
So once you've taken your breath in,
you're going to slowly trickle your breath out
until you need to take another breath in.
And, the idea of this it'll help you to relax
and for your stroke to be nice and smooth
and you can actually incorporate this drill
into any of your other drills as well.
- So once you've practised breathing on both your sides
and you've reconstructed your stroke back together,
it's really easy to still favour your more dominate
side for breathing.
Don't forget about your weaker side and in your training,
try and incorporate breathing solely to that side
be it your right or your left just to make sure
that you're comfortable doing that if you need to in a race.
- This drill actually doubles as hypoxic breathing,
because you're forced to hold your breath naturally
than you would do normally.
So you breathe three strokes then you hold
your breath for five strokes and then up to seven.
So you're automatically breathing on either side,
once you get to seven go back to three and build back up.
If you find this really easy
or you want to push yourself a little bit more,
you can add in nine strokes at the end.
And it's great for just helping you to stay smooth
and forcing you to breathe on your side
that you're least comfortable when you're starting to feel
a little bit desperate for air.
There are a few things to be aware of if you're introducing
bilateral breathing to your stroke.
Excessive and unnecessary head movement
can start to creep in,
so just make sure between breaths you
always bring your head back to the midline
just as you would if you were breathing to one side.
And the same goes for body snaking because if you start
to move your head side to side as opposed rotating it,
the rest of your body will follow in a snaking type action.
- And of course if you want to get the full benefit
of bilateral breathing you really must keep
practising in swimming regularly so in a race
situation it just becomes second nature.
For more videos click the globe here.
And that rotation video I discussed earlier,
find that here.
- And if you want to see the video that we made
specifically on breathing, that is just here.