How to Breathe in Sync with Your Freestyle!

If freestyle breathing is a struggle and you feel like you take a long time to breathe, yet you don't get enough oxygen, this video I'm going to explain why that's happening and how to correct it to where you can achieve a seamless freestyle breath. Hey, swimmers, welcome back to the Swim Vice channel. I'm coach Mandy, and today's quick tip video is on freestyle breathing, specifically on the timing of the breath and what happens if you take too long. Now, before I get started, if you are new to the channel or you've been watching my content, be sure to hit the subscribe button at the red button below. That way you stay notified for new and exciting content weekly. Okay, swimmers, so in this video, I'm going to go through the effects of breathing in sync with your freestyle technique. One, it improves your efficiency by reducing drag and maintaining your momentum. Also, it prevents you from over-rotating, so it keeps you balanced and in rhythm. So I will be demonstrating a common mistake where taking too long of a breath can negatively impact your freestyle technique, as well as a corrected where you can see a quick fluid breath, early and quick, which will help you maintain momentum and keep you streamlining forward. So first, I'm going to show you in this forward view what happens when you take too long and also exhale too much. What happens is you start to over-rotate. So over-rotate means you can draw a straight line from both shoulders vertically. When this occurs, this throws the body out of balance and it can keep you sinking under the water. In this demonstration, you can see I cannot get a breath at all because I'm over-rotated too much by taking too long. In this demonstration, I take too long, but I'm not sinking, so I will slow this down. Very common mistake. Right here, I'm taking a breath and you see that my left arm starts to drop. So if you're watching this and you feel that your arm starts to drop every time you try to breathe, most likely you are taking too long to breathe and over-rotating as you see in this freeze frame. And then what happens is I return my head back too late. My left arm has already moved back as my right hand has entered the water. So this throws my entire rhythm out of sync and it also causes extra movements that aren't necessary. So here I have it corrected, which is an early and quick breath. You'll see right here that I breathe early and I'm not over-rotated. I'm rotated about 45 degrees because I'm not taking too long. So right here, I'm getting the breath early and you'll see in the next frame, I get it quickly and you can still see that my left arm is still extended out front. It has not fallen as you've seen in the previous demonstration. By doing this, my whole entire breath is in sync with my freestyle tempo. There's no interruption. Here I'm demonstrating nice and easy how to breathe early and quick without it interrupting your freestyle. I keep my breath quick and I avoid lingering out of the water. And even though it's quick, you end up actually getting more oxygen and not throwing your timing off. So right here, you've seen this freeze frame. My head is low. I'm breathing within the pocket. And because I go early, I actually have time to breathe in the pocket. If you take too long, then the pocket will be gone. You'll not be able to breathe within that space moving forward. Okay, in this demonstration, I'm taking too long. You see how it just throws off the entire timing of my freestyle. Not only that, I'm way out of position, over-rotating, and also lingering during the breath. So taking too long in general throughout the stroke cycle when breathing. So you'll see right here as I'm looking up. So if you're practicing freestyle and you're looking at the sky or the ceiling of the pool, it is too far. You're taking too long and you are over-rotating when breathing. Also, if you see your arm past your face as you see in this freeze frame, you are taking too long. And when you take too long, you actually get less oxygen. It throws off your breathing timing and your stroke timing as well, creating more drag and always feeling like you have a hitch in your freestyle. And lastly, you can see in this underwater side view is taking too long and how it affects the body line. You see how it kind of sinks me. And then also my whole body's rotated facing the camera. That's when it takes too long and you're too far and just adding unnecessary movements. So the key with keeping a seamless breath is getting it early and quick. All right, swimmers, that's it for today's quick tip video on freestyle breathing. However, if you still struggle with freestyle, including your breath, join the Swimvice program today by hitting the pin comments below. And you can learn more about it at Swimvice.com. All right, swimmers, enjoy your practice and I will see you all next week.