Better Freestyle Breathing in 5 Pool Sessions

Let's start day 1. One of the most important things to effective breathing is our core body position. We need to make sure our hips are up and we have a long extended stroke in order to T ourselves up for an efficient breath.

As we begin to work on the drills in the upcoming pool sessions, take your time, and try to really focus on what we are learning in the lessons and bring them into your swimming for the day.

Developing an effortless stroke that is "second nature" will require attention to detail until you develop the muscle memory.

The most important thing to consider before we start breathing we must have our core body position optimized. We are focusing less on breathing in this drill and more setting the foundation for effective breathing. The foundation is what most people lack in order to have an efficient breath stroke.

This is the reason we have placed this drill here and find this drill probably one of the best drills in freestyle.

Focus on a long extension out front and drive your rotation with your hips.

Refer to your course workbook for a printable page that you can take to the pool with you.

Make sure to refer to your corresponding handbook (located in the Welcome lesson) for drill tips and highlights.

We are focusing on our breathing in this drill. Maintain a light flutter kick to keep your hips up.

Start with 5 strokes on each side then take a short rest. Repeat for two more sets or until you are feeling very comfortable with the drill.

If you feel your hips sinking focus on head position and making sure we are looking towards the bottom of the pool. Take a few strokes on each side making sure when we breath making sure:

• you are pulling to breathe

• slow controlled exhale when our face is in the water

• keep your head low (no lifting your head way up, we are just turning for a quick breath)

• keep your spine neutral- something common we see is swimmers pressing or flexing or curling their necks forward for a breath.

• keep a long spine and simply rotate your head just enough to breathe

Grab a kickboard and imagine doing one arm freestyle with one arm. You will hold the board extended out front with one arm, head looking down, then take a stroke with the other. Focus on a nice efficient breath.

• exhale smoothly between breaths

• pull to breathe

• keep a long spine, avoid pressing your head forward or picking it up to breath.

If you find your hips sinking, press your chest down and focus on your head position. You might be lifting your head too high.

Day 3 we start taking our good body position, breathing against the wall, kickboard breathing drill and start doing one arm freestyle drill.

This drill can challenging for some and if you find that you struggle with this, you will really need to focus on your core body position.

• head down, hips up

• driving your rotation from your hips to get the long extension out front with your entry hand

• a set of fins can sometimes be helpful with this drill.

If you need to work on day two for a few more pool sessions in order to work your way up to day 3 that is totally fine. The goal is to stack the drills in the correct way to make a meaningful and lasting change in your stroke.

This would be a great opportunity, before doing this drill, to do a refresher from your prior day. Start with the kickboard breathing drill or breathing against the wall and then start working on this drill.

This drill can be tricky to get the hang of so if you are struggling, try a set of fins. Fins allow us to focus more on our technique and less about forward momentum.

If needed, you can always stick with the kickboard breathing drill for an extra day or two until you have successfully mastered that drill.

Here we reinforce the concept of "pull to breathe" and it's importance when it comes to breathing at the correct part of our stroke. As you start to work on the day 4 drill, when you go to the pool I recommend starting with 1-2 of your drill from earlier days. Breathing against the wall or the kickboard breathing drill would be a great one to start with before you head into the catch up drill here on day 4.

We covered this a bit at the start of the course and because it is such an important concept, I wanted to dedicate a day to it towards the end. Often swimmers end up taking their breath too late in the stroke, which can be caused by a number of things however just by reminding yourself "pull to breathe" we have seen many swimmers make great strides from this.

This drill is excellent and can be used to focus on multiple aspects of your stroke. For today though, lets focus on having a great entry, long and extended right out front of your shoulder. As we begin our pull we will make sure to time our breath during this phase.

Fins are a great addition to this drill. See your course workbook for more recommendations.

Today we are going to start working on bilateral breathing and developing a balanced stroke. For this session in the pool I'd like you to work on the previous drills we have gone over in day 1-4. Today is going to begin with drill work, and then progress into practicing our breathing patters with a pull buoy.

Attached in the supporting documents you will find a printout of the workout for today.

We highly recommend using a pull buoy when working on your breathing. You won’t want to use one during your drills specifically, but for at least one set during your regular workout you should be using one.

Here is an example of what your workout might look like:

Let’s imagine your entire workout is going to be 1000 meters or 1000 yards.

Start with a 100 warm up,

8 x 25's drill work for the day

100 free focusing on incorporating your drill work INTO your freestyle. Ideally you will be aiming for perfect freestyle here. No rushing, just take what you were working on in the drill and apply it intentionally to your free.

Pull set: 4 x 50’s freestyle with a pull buoy. When doing this set continue to focus on the work from your drills. (alternatively depending on your level you could do 100's pull or even a 200 pull)

Main set of the day

Cool down/loosen.

If you are not to the level of swimming 1000 meters or yards in a workout that is OK. Focus on establishing proper technique and then build your yardage up.

As a ballpark, I usually recommend 20 percent of your workout come from a dedicated pull set. Within this pull set you should be very focused on your breathing technique. You will be surprised that with time, your breathing and body position will dramatically improve.

If you are unfamiliar with a pull buoy a quick google or Amazon search will bring you right to it. Brand or style doesn't quite matter. You simply place the buoy between your thighs while you swim and this assists keeping your hips up so you can isolate the upper body and focus on your pull.

I hope that you were able to improve on your breathing throughout these 5 days. If you find yourself struggling to perform any of the drills as advised, or feel as though your stroke needs additional help don't hesitate to reach out! Would be happy to make some additional recommendations.

Until next time,

Coach Scott