Swimming: How is Your Side Breathing Technique?

One of the biggest stumbling blocks in swimming is learning how to side breathe correctly. Many swimmers have a fear of drowning, but once they overcome that fear, they can work on relaxation, buoyancy, and increasing their distance.

Proper side breathing technique is when there is a turning of the body or rotation on it's axis that enables the mouth to be turned out of the water rather than lifted out to breathe. If you find that you are lifting your mouth out of the water, you will have the negative effect of adding drag by the sinking the lower body.

Proper breathing technique should allow you to inhale through your open mouth, and exhale through your nose. While your face is in the water, expel about 95% of your air supply under water. As you begin rotating, expel the remaining air out your nose. By releasing most but not all of your air prior to turning, you now have allowed the short amount of time that your face is now out of the water to inhale a good supply of air, rather than exhale and inhale in the limited amount of time due to your arm strokes. Don't be afraid to take a larger breath. A large breath allows your body to relax a little longer while performing an exhaustive athletic event.

Another important piece for efficient side breathing is the direction that you face to breathe. Looking behind you under your arm at a 45 degree angle creates a cove that the oncoming water moves around, rather than allowing water to be directed into your mouth. By looking under your arm and keeping your ear in the water, helps you to maintain the proper streamline position of your body while moving through the water smoothly.

Lastly, we should discuss the use of the off hand (the left hand for those that breathe on their right). As the off hand begins to drop (initiating the pull), the head should begin to rotate. The off hand is used in a supportive role, not aiding the rotation of the head. The longer the pull of the arms, the greater the breath and the more relaxed you should be.

If you have any questions about side breathing technique, or any other swimming related question, please feel free to contact me.

Written by Dan Lavin
Aquatics Director, Seattle Athletic Club Northgate

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Don’t be Upper Body Dominant; Add Kicking for Faster Times

Try this test. After a nice warm-up in the pool, time yourself and count the number of strokes (counting just one hand) it takes to go 40 yds.

After a brief rest period, do it again without kicking (no pull buoy either). If there isn’t a significant difference in your time along with a reduced number of strokes, what does that tell you? That you’re not using the strongest muscle group in your body!

Adding a strong kick to your stroke not only makes you quicker, but also distributes the workload throughout your entire body. Many triathletes reduce the amount of kicking towards the end of their swim to “preserve” their leg strength, but while you can, allow your whole body to participate, not certain parts to dominate.

In your workouts, don’t do a lot of lengths of kicking at one time, but kick more often during your workouts. Short powerful bursts are very handy when needing to pass someone who’s slowing you down. Keep your kick “active” with a high percentage of usage for propulsion, not just for balance.

Written by Dan Lavin
Aquatics Director, Seattle Athletic Club Northgate

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Stay Healthy, Train Smart

At this time of year, there are lots of athletes (swimmers, triathletes and runners) looking for ways to improve their times over last year’s records. Much effort is spent on training, diet, and a rigorous schedule to stay on top of it. Through it all, you may have missed something.

Ever wonder why many accomplished athletes are in their 30’s? It’s because they’ve learned how to train more efficiently. They can’t, and don’t “pound their body” like they did in their 20’s. It’s too hard on their bodies, the recovery time takes longer, the chance of injuries becomes greater, and they don’t improve their times as effectively. It’s not just “what” you do, but “how” you do it.

Your body can’t, or shouldn’t be expected to handle a punishing training session just because you feel you’re losing ground. Effective training takes into consideration, the current abilities of the athlete, their previous performance abilities and the future goals or records that are to be broken. From these things, it’s all about efficiency and effectiveness of a carefully managed training program. To improve means you have to stay in the game long enough to identify shortfalls and accept the work it will take to overcome them.

Another aspect to take into consideration is the environments that you train in. Living in the greater Seattle area, our weather isn’t always ideal for training outdoors whenever we feel like it. For this reason, I sometimes suggest rotating an athletes training events from indoor to outdoor (and vise versa) depending upon the type of workout and the weather forecast.

Stay healthy, train smart. Monitor your workouts to find what’s best for you, and seek professional advise if you are having questions or need guidance.

Written by Dan Lavin
Aquatics Director, Seattle Athletic Club Northgate

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Increase Your Efficiency in the Water to Build Speed

Integrating changes to your swim strokes or workout routines can often be so difficult that it becomes easier to throw in the towel, than work through the challenges.

Most seasoned swimmers find it hard to take on new ideas or methods to improve their swim stroke, when they feel their current way works just fine. It’s likely a swimmer could go faster and move through the water cleaner if they modify their stroke.

Here are some helpful suggestions:
1) First, find a trusted eye (coach, instructor, or personal trainer) that has knowledge, credentials, and proven track record. Explain to them your goals, and remind them of any physical problems that might get in your way (diabetes, asthma, high blood pressure, etc.).
2) Find your weaknesses, and seek drills to improve upon those pieces.
3) Train with others that make you work harder/more often, yet encourage you to swim efficiently.
4) Periodically time yourself for different distances or a predetermined amount of laps.
5) After you warm up, and before your cool down, check the number (count one hand only per length) of strokes it takes you. This will encourage you to not forget to glide in your stroke.
6) Remember that it always takes less work to swim efficiently, and makes you faster in the long run.

Written by Dan Lavin
Aquatics Director, Seattle Athletic Club Northgate

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Do You Struggle with Side Breathing During Your Swim Workouts?

The skill of being capable of side breathing or not, usually separates the struggling beginner swimmer from those that swim in comfort. Breathing has that affect upon the wet set.

Although it’s called “side breathing”, it really should be called “slightly looking back” breathing.

To start with, we want to reduce any amount of drag (resistance) that makes us work harder, and slows us down. Our goal is to swim as level as possible head to toe. Allow the side of your head (ear), to remain in the water while you rotate your head. Don’t lift your head, like a teeter-totter; your feet will drop faster than you can say “cannon ball”.

Roll your head to take your breath. Keeping your spine aligned, just rotate your head and look back in a 45-degree angle. By doing this, the small wake created by your foreword progress will move behind you, not find a home in your mouth.

Expel about 95 % of your air supply underwater, through your nose, but save the remaining 5% to expel while you are rotating your head. With the short amount of time that your face is actually out of the water, you want to use to breathe deeply through your mouth

Lastly, the longer the pull, the bigger the breath you’ll receive. Relax, you’re on your way to being more comfortable in the water, and lookin’ like the fish you always wanted to be.

Written by Dan Lavin
Aquatics Director, Seattle Athletic Club Northgate

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Am I Too Old for Swimming Lessons?

The obvious answer is no! As we age, we tend to forget what the benefits of a “helpful eye” from a qualified teacher can be. Such as what muscles we have favored vs. which one’s we’ve neglected, changes in body type, and range of motion.

Over the last 10 years alone there have been major modifications in the evolution of the swimming stroke, as well as what is currently legal/ acceptable in competition. One look at 42-year-old Olympic medallist Dara Torres, and you can see how dry land drills, diet, training techniques, and improved stroke analysis can aid even the most seasoned vet.

Allow our WSI certified swimming instructor’s help you regain some of the past, improve for future competitions, or simply change your workout regimen with a non-impact high cardiovascular exercise routine.

By Dan Lavin, Aquatics Director - Seattle Athletic Club Northgate