On this blog, you’ll learn how to breathe efficiently and faster. If you don’t learn how to breathe while swimming properly, you won’t improve any other part of your swimming.
Most people think it is all about head movement, but it is not. There are at least 4 skills you need to know before breathing efficiently and faster.
Skill #1 – 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 causes 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.
Try doing this: Take a quick breath in and then start exhaling slowly for as long as you can. If you don’t last at least ten seconds calmly, you won’t last two/three seconds slowly exhaling while swimming. So let’s see what happens.
Slowly exhaling is a skill that can be beneficial for singers, but it’s not ideal for beginner swimmers. Instead, beginner swimmers should focus on a specific breathing pattern that supports their movement in the water.
Here’s how it works:
Start by exhaling a small amount of air through your nose, then switch to exhaling through your mouth, (This helps clear any water that might enter your nose and prepares you for the next breath), after that, take a quick, deep breath through your mouth and hold it until it’s time for your next exhale. Try practicing each three strokes for breathing.
This breathing cycle aligns with your strokes, allowing you to maintain a steady rhythm in the water.
At first, this might make you feel slightly dizzy if you’re practicing it out of the water. That’s because your body isn’t engaged in physical activity, which typically stabilizes your breathing. To avoid this, try holding your breath for a few seconds longer before taking quick breaths as you practice. Once you’re comfortable with this pattern, it will help you swim more efficiently.
Skill #2 – Timing
Now that you’ve mastered the skill of quick breaths, the second skill to master is 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.
Skill #3 – Horizontal Balance
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; 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.
Skill #4 – Rotation
Now you can focus on the last skill, the rotation. If you watch closely, advanced swimmers don’t turn their heads 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 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.
Don’t forget to share this knowledge with others!
Thank you!