EZ Swimmin'

Slow easy swimming is the best way to practice technique. Recently, I have been working on hand entry. I’m aiming for a cleaner hand entry so that there will be less bubbles as I pull through the water. The less bubbles the more efficient the stroke.

My right hand entry is the one that I’ve been focusing on. I have an old habit of dropping the pinky side in first. To compensate, I’ve learned that I must make it feel completely opposite and aim for the feeling of dropping my thumb in first. By doing this, I will eventually train myself to enter correctly… which will be somewhere in-between.

Today I started easy with the Stability Snorkel. The use of a center mounted snorkel allows me to focus on technique without having to think about the timing, rhythm and rotation for the breath. This gives me the opportunity to work on hand entry exclusively, looking for the best way to enter with the least amount of bubbles. After I getting into a good rhythm, I remove the snorkel and add an additional skill… breathing.

Yes, breathing is a skill. When done correctly, we maintain good body position and balance, getting the most “bang for the buck”. In a previous post, Early Breath, I describe it in more detail.

I finished todays workout with easy swimming, concentrating on hand entry and the early breath. It seems to look better. All I need to do now is to keep practicing it slowly until it becomes second nature.

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Early Breath

What is an early breath… and why?

Breathing in Freestyle is the one point in the stroke where most swimmers fall out of alignment, no longer balanced with their bodies in that perfect line. It happens a lot and to almost everyone. As I’ve mentioned in Rotation Drills, the snorkel is the best tool for training with, whether it’s hard sets or drills.

But back to breathing. Most swimmers tend to take a long breath that follows their recovery arm from exiting the water to reentering the water. I like to call this “breathing with your hand” because one watches the full recovery stroke while breathing. This way of breathing causes many problems with balance from front to back as well as side to side. When this happens, swimmers compensate in ways that make swimming inefficient.

An early breath is taken much earlier in the stroke than described above. It also allows us to keep a much better “line” with our bodies, giving us more power with less drag. It’s about efficiency. As swimmers, we want to get as far as we can, as fast as we can with the least amount of work.

The timing for an early breath is like this: the breath should be taken at the peak of our rotation on the breathing side. This is just before our recovering hand exits the water. The breath is a quick sip of air so that we can return our head before the recovery hand enters the water. At the same time that we return our head into the water, we should be seeing the beginning of the pull from the hand on our non-breathing side. This will take some time to get used to, but give it a try. Once mastered, you will find that the breath is quick and easy. Your breath will be lower in the water so that one goggle is underwater at all times. Most importantly, you will find that your swimming will be much more effective, getting more bang for the buck!

btw… can you spot my breath? what side am I breathing on?

Go Swim has a video with Scott Tucker. In that video there is a section titled Hide the Breath. You need to have a membership at Go Swim, but this is great footage of an early breath with tips.

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