For those new to swimming or unfamiliar with the term, bilateral breathing means to breathe to both the right and left side while you swim. Simple enough concept. Sorta like dribbling with your right and left hand when you play basketball. The problem is that quite a few new swimmers (and let’s face it, a lot of swimmers who’ve been at it for a while) shy away from it because it feels awkward and can take a while to adjust to. Added to that that, if you’re struggling with swimming to begin with, and then you must hold your breath for 2 strokes (if you’re breathing every 3) then you’re going to get winded in a hurry. But just because it’s difficult shouldn’t mean you gloss over the idea. The benefits associated with it are many. In fact, as you might have guessed, I’m going to go over a few of them here.

Sighting – For triathletes this is the most obvious argument that is made, and perhaps, one of the least important. In any given open water swim, you are bound to get the sun in your face at some point. So if you are breathing to your right side and the sun is in your face, then the ability to breathe to your left is a great help in navigating your way through the course. The reason I say that this might be the least important is that you can also just close your eyes when you breathe and lift your head to sight in front of you to get around this problem. Not a great solution, but it will do the trick.

Symmetrical Technique – This one’s a biggie. Almost without exception, swimmers will have a strong side and a weak side. Right handed? Then your right arm/pull is typically stronger than your left. To make matters worse, swimmers will cater to the strong side by breathing to the strong side. A the domino effect begins..In order to breathe just to one side (we’ll use the right for this discussion)  they start swimming with the left shoulder lower in the water to make for an easier breath.  This makes one arm pull deeper than the other. To compensate for that they begin to reach a little further with the right arm to get a bigger pull with the strong arm. This soon turns into an overreach, and now there is a slight wiggle in their stroke. In order to compensate for the wiggle, the swimmer adds one really large kick with his right foot to get the body to rotate back over. Now he has a scissor kick and can’t swim in a straight line. What started out as favoring one side of breathing a little has turned into a bit of a messy stroke. This isn’t an exaggeration either. I have corrected a stroke just like this on numerous occasions by simply forcing them to breathe every 3rd stroke to make the pull symmetrically. There are other examples I could give such as dropping the elbow and breaking form when you breathe, but this is a blog, not a book.
Notice the asymmetrical strokes in the following videos. Strong swimmers, but the uneven stroke is costing them efficiency.

Rotation – Good body rotation is a big focus in learning how to swim well. Grab any book on the subject of swimming and rotation is mentioned early and often. When you choose to breathe on just one side though, you only develop half of that rotation. Because you’re favoring (as I mentioned above) one side, you will not rotate fully back to the other side. This is also at trap when people breathe just to the right for a length and then just to the left for a length. It’s a typical workaround for those who just hate breathing every 3rd stroke. So by favoring one side you rotate well in one direction and then finish rotating on the other side completely flat on their stomach. By not continually alternating your breathing you don’t learn proper rotation, you just learn how to drop a shoulder.

Swimming Straight – This is also a play off of the technique issue (isn’t everything a play off of technique with swimming?). An imbalance in your stroke leads to swimming crooked. It’s quite simple really. If one arm has a bigger reach/stroke than another, even if by a tiny amount, then the stronger arm/bigger stroke will control the direction. Never an issue in the pool as you have a black line and your hands naturally adjust pitch to steer in a straight line. Get in open water however, and you you’ll find yourself swimming all over the place. Happens to everyone. When I breathe to my left I tend to steer right just a little. Still working on that.

Now, I know the first thing some of you are thinking. “Well I watched (Insert Name Here) race in the Olympics/Ironman/World Cup, and they breathed to the same side the whole race. If they don’t do it why should I think it’s important? Answer is pretty simple really. When you race, technique needs to almost be automatic and getting enough air needs to be the focus. In training, you are focusing on technique so that it becomes automatic, so that needs to be the focus. In other words, when the effort is big (training or racing) get your air, but the rest of the time dial in that stroke.

If nothing else, watch the best swimmers do it. If you think it’s tough and they make it look easy…maybe, just maybe, there’s something to it.

Now go breathe right…..and left.

So why is it met with such resistance? Beats me. The good cyclists all know how to ride in a pace line. No one says “don’t learn how to ride in a group because you don’t draft in a triathlon”. Riding in a group teaches handling skills, pace, and often can push you beyond what you would normally do by yourself in an effort to keep up with those faster. While the skill set learned by doing a flipturn varies a great deal from that of riding in a paceline, the indirect benefits of learning to flip are just as important. So let your guard down for a minute and let’s go over a few perks that come with an effective flipturn.

1. Uninterrupted swimming. I figure I would start with the most obvious benefit. For those who swim in an 25 yard pool (most of us) and do an open turn (meaning you put your hand on the wall to turn around), you are interrupting the pace and rhythm of your swim at least a couple times a minute. Better swimmers who have dialed in the open turn a little are also getting a little extra rest and an added breath.  Hey, wait a minute…you don’t get to grab a wall and take an extra breath every 25 yards in an open water swim! Why the heck are you doing it then? Because it’s easier.

Quick side story. Every year I do a swim clinic for a local sprint race here where I live for first timers or those unsure about open water swimming. We go through a number of things regarding anxiety, sighting positioning, etc. When it’s time to swim, without fail I have a few people who swim 30 to 40 yards, roll over on their back and paddle to the shore (see where this is going?). They almost always get out and tell me how they regularly swim lap after lap in the pool without a problem and they can’t figure out what happened. I will tell you that there are a number of things that go wrong in the first minute of a lake swim, but the lack of a wall to grab to get an extra breath is a large contributor to their problems.

By doing an effective turn, you eliminate breaktime every 25 and create a more continuous workout. It’s going to make you tired faster, but it will also make you faster faster.

2. Breath control. I don’t want to turn this into a long winded (get it? man I crack myself up) discussion on hypoxic training, but I will say this. Trying to simulate altitude training simply by holding your breath is ridiculous, but in swimming there is still a need (and some benefits and adaptations) to learn how to control your breathing while you swim. Swimming is one of the only sports that you don’t have free access to oxygen at all times. Because of this, you need to be able to manage and time your breathing to match your effort. Flip turns are a great way to get better at all of this. If you do, say, a race pace 500 in a workout you will notice that towards the end of the 500 that you have more and more trouble finishing your turns as the need for oxygen becomes overwhelming. Yet over time, your body will adapt by increasing lung capacity, alveolar number and pulmonary diffusing capacity making those turns easier. The nice carryover that you get is that you can manage your breathing in-between turns better because of this. So that desperate gasp for air late in a hard swim becomes lessened. Now apply this to open water. At the start, we have all been or will be hit, kicked or run over at that start and thereby disrupting our breathing. Same goes for wavy or rough conditions. Your ability to adapt easily and not get panicked or out of breath will allow you to maintain form and speed, even you missed some air.

3. Better Technique. In the swimming world, it’s referred to as “feel for the water”. I would also call it better awareness in the water. As I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, very small adjustments in swimming can lead to very large improvements. I mostly discuss the larger aspects of swimming here so as not to muddy the waters (get it? man I’m on a roll here. tip your waitress), but there are lots of smaller items that add up as well. Did you know some of the best swimmers glide with their hand at a 25 degree angle and not flat? You get the idea. So with flip turns, the motion of your hands, arms, head, torso, legs, etc will all effect what happens as you turn. Learning that awareness, and applying it to the rest of your swimming will give you tools you didn’t have before in your attempt to get better. The little things add up.

4. Pool Swim Triathlons – Obvious, but worth mentioning. As you can see in this clip of me flipping under a lane rope, if you can swim a snake in a pool and use turns, you can make some serious time on your competition.

5. And of course …Street Cred: Let’s face facts, if you are doing flip turns in your workout, your street cred goes up. You look like you know what you are doing. We’ve all seen (or in my case been) the guy who wore tennis shoes and a tshirt to his first club bike ride. Not a thing wrong with it, but you knew right away that this guy was new to the sport. Compare that to the day you saw the tshirt guy show up on a new rig and had cycling shoes and cycling clothes. Looked like he knew what the heck he was doing didn’t he?

There are other perks to learning how to do a flipturn, but really now, if you aren’t interested in seeing the light then there aren’t any examples I could give that are going to change your mind. And that’s ok. I am quite aware that there are many out there that deep down aren’t that interested in getting much better at swimming, which is perfectly fine. Sports are about having fun, not torture. Get out there and enjoy yourself. Plus, the less you want to do flipturns, the further down the road I will be before you climb out of the water. And I have no problem with that at all.

Happy flipping.

I met with John over at FINS a couple of weeks ago to look over his stroke. A couple of things caught my eye right away.

First and foremost, take a look at John’s kick. As he finishes breathing and begins to rotate, you can see a big scissor kick. This isn’t all that uncommon. The reason for it is not the fundamentals of his kick, but rather the over rotation of his body when he turns to get a breath. Many of you have heard the phrase “rotate from your hips” or “rotate from your core” . Well, this is true, but only part of the story. When you swing a bat or a golf club, the power of that swing is not really coming from your arms so much as it is your core. The hips rotate first and the bat/club follow. When you try and make that statement in swimming though, you leave out one MAJOR piece of the puzzle. That is, when you swing a bat/club and rotate from the hips, your feet are firmly planted on the ground. This allows you to twist. In the water, you are floating in the water and not planted to anything, so the only way you can twist, or rotate, is to kick. So if your kick is lousy, there’s a really good chance your rotation is too.

In John’s case, his over-rotation is the cause of the big scissor kick as the only way he can get all the way back over. Conversely, he doesn’t rotate much to the other side so there isn’t a need for the giant kick. That’s why he doesn’t scissor on the other side. So what’s the fix? How do you fix this kick? Answer: breathing. This is one of those knee-bone connected to the thigh-bone answers. The kick is caused by the over rotation. The over rotation is only on the side that he breathes. So to break the chain, John needs to fix how he breathes. By breathing every third stroke, John will balance his stroke out, and by that I mean that the actions of each side of his body will mirror each other.

In the first 25 that he swam breathing every 3, his scissor kick was reduced by 50%.

So what else?

In the next clip, John’s right arm is extending and gliding (and therefore pulling) different from his left arm. Watch as the right arm drives toward the bottom of the pool and the left arm extends further out and more horizontal before the pull/catch begins. This also happens to be caused by the overrotation that I just discussed. By entering and extending downwards when he should be extending out, John misses all the benefits of a glide as well as the most powerful part of his pull. Some call this front quadrant swimming. From the point at which your hand enters the water and extends out horizontal to the pool bottom to the point in which the arm is perpendicular to the pool bottom is where you generate the most power. By extending downward, in say, a 4 o’clock position, John has just eliminated a huge chunk of power, not to mention the lack of glide that is created. The other problem that this creates is crooked swimming, which will be a major headache come raceday.

 The fix is simple. Point where you want to go. In addition to bilateral breathing to balance his stroke out, if John simply points where he wants to go the problem will correct. In this case, he should point to the wall at the other end with his hand as it enters the water.

Lastly, is the kick itself. For John, I think the fundamentals of his kick are pretty sound (except for the scissor kick of course). It starts at the hip, moves through the knee and finishes through the ankle/toes. The problem is the flexibility. I know I probably sound like a broken record here, but in order to realize the power that your kick is producing, the ankles have to be flexible enough to produce that final snap. So my best advice here is to stretch and kick with fins. A little flexibility will go a long ways.

Now go sit on your ankles.

There are a couple of other things going on here as well in conjunction with this, but you have to look a little closer. First of all, if you look at the above water shot, you can see that the head doesn’t just dip down, but it also dips over. This will cause a person to swim crooked faster than anything. In swimming, you have to envision yourself on a barbecue skewer. The head and body stay in a straight line just as if you had a skewer running through your head, while your body rotates on that axis to pull, kick and breathe. If your body breaks from that axis by wiggling, bending or moving your head from one side to the other, you lose efficiency and often swim crooked. That can kinda be a problem in the middle of a lake. Additionally, watch the left hand as Kent’s head takes that dive. Notice how his hand turns to the side with the pinkie finger down at the onset of the pull. It looks as if Kent is attempting to keep the entry and pull in in-line and he overcompensates for the head by dropping the elbow on the extension and turning his hand so as to keep the good rotation. The problem is that his misses the first and very powerful part of the pull because his hand is sideways. Keeping the head straight should correct most of this, but focusing on the position of the hand as the pull starts will be important in order to correct this.

Speaking of the pull, look at the right arm during the pull. The pull itself looks really good on both arms as you can see that he is getting some power out of each pull, but during that pull there are a bunch of bubbles being dragged through the water. This mostly has to do with the hand entry. His hand enters well beyond the top of his head and is therefore entering at a steep angle. If Kent were to make a shallower entry by entering a little closer to the top of his head, he can remove those bubbles and get  a better grip on the water.

Finally, I want to touch on the overall body position. From the side-view video you can see that Kent’s legs are dragging just a tad by the end of the length. This is due mainly to the effectiveness of the the kick. While the mechanics of the kick seem to be spot on, it’s the ankle flexibility that is the problem. Simple enough fix. Stretch out your ankles and you will generate more power from you kick.

The beauty here is that a couple of small adjustments will probably fix a number of issues, so there aren’t tons of things to focus on and get confused with. Hopefully straightening the head and bilateral breathing will have a domino effect and fix some of the other issues in the stroke.

Now go get in the water.

One of the first things that you notice is Sheri’s body position. You can see pretty quickly that her hips are riding a bit low in the water. Typically, this is a simple head position issue. You want to have your head lined up with the rest of your body, as opposed to having your head up, looking out in front of you. In this case though, Sheri does a pretty good job at keeping her head in the proper position. In fact, even when she turns to breathe she does a nice job at not lifting her head for air. Instead, Sheri’s poor body position is because of two different issues; she tends to swim with her chest rather high in the water and her kick is generating almost no lift.

The solution to the first part is rather easy, the second is a bit more of a challenge. Sheri needs to lower her upper body down into the water by a few inches. It’s very simple to do but will often feel awkward because it takes a while to get comfortable swimming so low in the water.  One way to make the adjustment is to push off the wall in a streamlined position,  and with no kicking or pulling, adjust your body position so that you are flat or horizontal in the water. It may take a kick or two to keep your feet on the surface once you slow down from the push off the wall, but once you find that flat position in the water, you need to use it in your regular swimming.

The next piece of this puzzle is her kick. Sheri’s kick looks to be a 4 beat crossover kick. This means that she will kick twice for every arm stroke and  that at a certain point in her kick the left leg crosses under the right. Why the crossover? If you watch, you can see that she has good body rotation when she breathes to the left, but much flatter when she rotates to the right. A good kick is typically straight down and initiates the rotation to the other side. Because her kick is weak and rotation not as strong on this side, Sheri’s left, or bottom leg tries to compensate by kicking diagnally and across her body. Hence the cross over.

The main problem with Sheri’s kick is that it is almost entirely from the knees down. She is generating no power from her hips. As I have mentioned other times, you want to kick in freestyle like you kick a ball. The hips start the kicking motion and you finish through the knee and ankle. Sheri’s hips and knees aren’t coordinating with each other, so any force that she is creating is coming from her knees and ankles.

Fixing this can be a bit more of a challenge, because the kick creates a rhythm and a timing for the whole stroke, and so changing this bad habit often feels like you are overhauling your entire stroke. I would recommend that she dedicate some serious pool time this winter to kicking, both with and without fins, and really focus on kicking a ball everytime.

The final piece of Sheri’s stroke that I want to address is a common one. Dropping her elbow. As Sheri’s arm begins the pull, you can see that it’s her elbow, not her hand or forearm that is the leading edge through the water. In fact, her forearm doesn’t get vertical until her pull is at her hips. I go into greater detail about this problem here, but in a nutshell she needs pull with her hand and forearm and not her elbow. A good drill to do to work on this is swimming with a closed fist. By removing the surface area of your hand you are forced to use your wrist and forearm to move you through the water. By doing this and focusing on where your elbow should be in relation to your forearm, you can correct the problem. Doing the pull correctly usually results in that AH HA! moment as you generate considerable more power from each stroke immediately.

Fixing bad habits in the water can be a bit frustrating, but if Sheri spends the time now making these adjustments, she will be coming out of the water faster and have used less energy. I’m sure this will be a motivator, because I know Sheri would love nothing more than to get the heck out of the water and onto something else, like the bike and the run.

Body Position: The first thing I noticed was the body position in the water. Her hips are riding a little low in the water, and this is the main reason her kick rate is so high. (See the pic below as well) She’s using her kick not for rotation or propulsion (see more on the kick here and here), but for lift. The kick is trying to keep here hips/legs high in the water. By adjusting her overall body position slightly she will save her legs from all the kicking and save gobs of energy in the process.

Pull: In watching her swim, I could tell pretty quickly that Ana drops her elbow as she pulls. It can be a little difficult to pick up if you don’t know what your looking for, so I grabbed a still shot so that you can see what I am trying to point out. As I have mentioned before, dropping your elbow is very common in all levels of athletes, and especially so as you fatigue because you can maintain your cadence. The problem is that you’re reducing the efficiency of your pull dramatically as you do this. So once we adjust the body position, we can focus on maximizing the pull. (I go into the high elbow in much greater detail here, but in a nutshell, by leading your pull through the water with your elbow, you can drastically decrease the effectiveness of your stroke. We worked on the pull a good bit while we were there and I could see some great improvement by the end of the session. In fact, if you look at the two videos posted here you can see a difference in the second video (taken towards the end of the swim).

Kick: Now that the position is corrected, we can adjust the kick itself, because if we tried to do it first, her legs would just sink or she would revert back to her old ways so that she wouldn’t sink.

Ana has a 6 beat kick, meaning that for every stroke cycle she kicks 6 times, or 3 kicks for every pull. It takes her about 15 strokes to swim (which by the way is quite good) so that means she kicks 45 times for every 25 yards, or about 7,600 times in an Ironman swim. If she can convert her swim to a 2 beat kick (more about the 2 beat kick here), she could reduce her effort by 5,100 kicks in the Ironman. That energy would be much better spent on the bike and run. Improving her kick will also improve her body rotation, which will help her pull and body position.

For those learning to swim, or even for those who’ve been swimming for a while, this might seem like I’m beating up a a good stroke. Truth is, it is a good stroke (Don’t worry Ana!) but there are some key things holding her back from getting to the next level. And for the purists out there, yes there are some other things going on, like the pitch of her hand and her entry point, (causing some of those bubbles during her pull) for example, but these are minor and simple to correct once some of the other stuff is addressed.

Clear as mud right? Got questions? Let me have it.

Oh and Sheri, don’t worry, you’re next

The starting point is the same for the beginner as it is for the Olympic swimmer: technique. Even the best take some time every year to refresh their skills in the pool, so without getting into great detail here are some quick things to remember in terms of your technique.

Body Position – Take a little time to dial in your position in the water. Ideally, you need to be flat in the water with your hips and feet just under the surface, your head not lifted and low in the water. Most of us swim with our heads too high in the water and as a result our hips and feet drop. Kicking in a streamlined position without fins is a great way to find your position. Push off the wall in a streamlined position and adjust your body so that you are level in the water. By shifting where your head/shoulders rest in the water will largely determine how high in the water your hips/feet will be. Once you get yourself in the correct position it will only take a minimal kick(even for those who are poor at kicking) to keep the position and make forward progress. If you find yourself having trouble keeping your feet up, try lowering your head in the water a little more. A few 25′s to start your workout should do the trick.

Streamline – Your ability to reduce your resistance and maximize your glide/distance per stroke is at the core of a good stroke. The more streamlined you can get, the more efficient you become. This is one of the biggest problems I have seen among triathletes, because getting streamlined requires some flexibility, something triathletes just don’t have. The best way to get a good streamline is to stretch. Anytime. Anywhere. Watching the game? Stretch those lats for a few minutes. Sitting in the office? Stretch those triceps out briefly. When you’re in the water, you need to be pushing off every wall in a streamlined position. Remember, the position you’re in with both hands above your head pushing off the wall is essentially the same position as when you fully extend each hand in front of you while swimming. So if you can’t hold a good streamline with both hands together, your stroke won’t be very efficient either.

Pull – Dozens of drills to choose from here so I’ll keep it short, but you need to focus on a clean entry and a high elbow as you pull through the water. Dropping your elbow, or leading the pull with your elbow greatly reduces the effectiveness of your pull.

Rotation – Most of us swim through the water very flat. Ideally your entire body (except your head) should rotate from one side to the other to promote a deeper and more effective pull, better streamline/glide, and reduce the strain on your shoulders. Again, there are dozens of drills out there so I won’t go into great detail here, but this is an excellent time to work on your body rotation. Word of warning: All too often I see people practicing these drills at great length but are unable to apply them to their actual stroke. Don’t spent 20 minutes kicking on your side just to go back to your flat, regular swimming. Be sure to apply the skill.

So you’re focusing on your technique and are knocking out a few drills every workout. Is that it? Nope. Far from it. This next part is what’s going to make you a stronger swimmer, whether your technique improves or not. What’s the trick? It’s really quite simple and it’s something that poor swimmers miss all the time. It’s called swimming, and more swimming, and when your done with that, it’s time to swim some more.

The seemingly big secret to swimming (I say it’s a secret because I never hear anyone talk about it in tri circles) is that you need to swim a lot in order to get better. Just like running and cycling, volume is a major key to improvement. For some reason this gets lost on triathletes. Usually this is because they hate to swim and would rather put in more miles on the bike or run.

Lets use running as a quick example. If you want to improve your running to that of your competitors and you are running 12 miles a week and your competition is running 25 miles per week, what is the first thing you need to do? You got it. Start running more.Exact same thing applies here, but for some reason everyone falls back on the old “I just need to work on my technique” argument. If you are swimming 2,000 yards per week and you want to get out of the water with the people swimming 10,000 yards per week, I got news for you. Technique is not the main problem. In fact, by doing more volume you will find that your stroke will improve without a bunch of drill work. Your body will naturally find a more efficient stroke just through practice.

Don’t worry, “Go Swim More” isn’t my only message here. You also need to mix up the strokes and learn to do flip turns. I know, the classic response to this is “Well, I only swim freestyle in races and there are no flip turns in open water”. While this is correct, the truth is that it’s easier to just swim freestyle and continue without flip turns. The other strokes can be very difficult, and doing an open turn allows for an extra breath and a short pause every 25 yards. By swimming some other strokes occasionally you are able to strengthen the supporting muscles that aid in a proper stroke. When those muscles fatigue and ultimately fail, your stroke starts to fall apart, like your elbow dropping during a pull, which reduces the effectiveness of your freestyle. Swimming the other strokes can also help prevent injury and promote flexibility. Butterfly and breastroke build up the shoulders and the breastroke kick can help build up the muscles around the knee, something that comes in handy on the bike and run. I’m not suggesting you get carried away here. A few hundred yards of non freestyle is all that’s needed. I regards to the flip turn, you need to get comfortable doing these on every turn. It keeps the workout and workload constant and cuts out that extra breath. As an added bonus, you’ll look like an athlete training for something and not a lap swimmer.

With, technique, volume, other strokes, and flip turns, creating the proper swim workout cocktail is not always easy, so is joining a swim team the best way to go? Yes and no. If you are new to swimming, have trouble getting enough volume in, or tend to swim nonstop, then I would recommend giving the local group a try. They will be able to show you how to structure a workout and give you tips on your stroke. If however, you have been swimming for a while and are comfortable putting together workouts, it might be easier to do your own thing. Either way, if you decide to put some focus on your swim, even for just a few weeks, I think you will be surprised with how fast you will see the results.

Happy Swimming.