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Learn How To Swim 101: Freestyle Breathing Faults

Learn How To Swim 101: Freestyle Breathing Faults

I had a new swimming student today that was using a double stroke. My immediate thought was "Oh well I'll just have to use the old catch up drill and fix it".

image of a freestyles swimmer blowing bubbles as they do their stroke. Not blowing bubbles under water is one of the more common freestyle breathing faults that is seem of those who learn how to swim
Freestyle Blowing Bubbles

Then I noticed something.

The student was not blowing any bubbles! The importance of blowing all your air our underwater cannot be overstated. If you hold your breath till you turn your head you have to blow out all your air and breathe in with the one stroke. The result is that you never get a full lung of air.

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Not having a full lung of air is the cause of several freestyle faults:

  • Turning ones head too far (looking at the roof) thus causing overreaching and zig zag.
  • Taking a breath to the side and then looking forward to taking another breath thus messing up your timing.
  •  And last but not least the double stroke.

In this case, the double stroke was the result. And what was the solution?

Telling the student to Blow bubbles (meaning to blow all her air out underwater so that when she turned her head to take a breath she had nothing left to do but breathe in. Breathing in after exhaling all your air underwater results in a full lung of air when you take a breath.

The value of blowing bubbles is worth remembering I think.

Next, I'll talk about Kicking faults.

Enjoy     
Richard



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