On this video you’ll learn how to breathe like this. If you don’t learn how to properly
breathe while swimming, you won’t improve any other part of your swimming. Most people
think it is all about the head movement but it is not so. There are at least 4 skills
you need to know before breathing like this.
1 skill rhythm
The first skill is to learn the rhythm of the breath. This is what most people who start
swimming or are afraid of swimming get wrong and cause them to panic or feel distress.
In every stroke you have to take a quick breath and hold it. But let’s start with freestyle
since it is the most popular stroke. Some people teach slowly releasing the air through
your lungs before the next breath. I don’t like that method for two reasons. Here do
this with me. Take a quick breath in and then start exhaling slowly for as long as you can.
If you didn’t last at least ten seconds while calmly watching this video, you won’t
last two seconds slowly exhaling while you take another breath, and won’t last longer
than 2 stroke without a breath. Slowly exhaling is a useful skill for singers but not for
beginner swimmers.
Now follow along my breathing pattern while I swim freestyle breathing every 3 strokes.
Ready? …. Notice how I first exhale through my nose a little and then through my mouth,
then I take a quick breath through my mouth and hold it until the next quick exhale. You
might’ve gotten a little dizzy just doing that. But that’s because you aren’t exercising
and you started breathing as if you were. To practice this breathing pattern without
getting dizzy while sitting down, hold your breath for longer, like 8 to 10 seconds and
then take quick breaths.
2 skill timing
Now that you’ve mastered the skill of quick breaths, the second skill to master is the
timing. This is where starting to exhale through your nose is important. When you rotate your
head to breathe there is inevitably a little bit of water in your nose which can get in
deeper if you don’t exhale a little bit through your nose first. Once that is cleared,
exhale through your mouth as you rotate your head. Then, as soon as you feel you’re exhaling
out of the water take that quick breath and bring your head back down.
3 skill balance The third skill you need to master is body
balance. To breathe properly your body needs to be horizontal and very close to the surface
of the water. The second reason I don’t like to teach exhaling slowly through your
nose is that it changes your floatability and you sink. As you know bubbles float and
if your lungs are full you will float too. But your lower body doesn’t have lungs with
air so they naturally sink. To fix this, you don’t need strength or effort, you need
balance.
Developing balance takes time, but we can shorten that time with the following drills.
Grab the wall and kick fast. Feel how the hips raise. That’s good but you don’t
need to kick that fast for the legs to raise. Gradually start slowing down your kick but
try maintaining the hips up. You’ll maybe feel like you are pulling your upper body
down with your hands and that is good.
Now kick in a superman position like this while pushing your chest down and pulling
your hips up. You can do this face up too. And then do it sideways with one arm down.
4 skill rotation Once you do it sideways you can now focus
on the last skill, the rotation. If you watch closely, advanced swimmers don’t turn their
head too much to breathe. They rotate their whole body, or at least the upper body and
the head is in a much easier place to just take that quick breath.
So while you are kicking sideways, take your head out a little with one ear still touching
the water and take a quick breath. Do one stroke to kick to the other side and take
another quick breath.
You don’t need to swim all the way to the other side of the pool. You can do a few meters
like this and stop.
Repetition of these drills is important, because we naturally tend to go back to our legs sinking
and our breathing patterns messed up. Even the best swimmers in the world still do balance
drills and breathing techniques very often.