Welcome to the "Effortless
Swimming" YouTube channel.
My name's Brenton Ford.
And this is feedback Friday
number 4, where every Friday we
look at someone stroke.
We analyze it, and we help you
understand what to look for
and how to swim faster,
more efficiently.
So these videos are
designed to help
you become a better swimmer.
Today, we're looking at your
breathing timing in freestyle
and how to tell if you're
breathing to late in freestyle.
So the first video
we're going to look at
is of someone who's
breathing late.
They're turning their
head a little too slow
or a little too late.
So their just missing
out on the timing,
and this timing is just throwing
the rest of their stroke timing
out.
So if we look at the
video of someone who's
getting their
breathing timing right,
you can say that the very
first thing that we need to do
is when your hand enters on the
opposite side to what you're
breathing-- that's when you
start to turn your head.
So you can see as the
right hand enters,
the head begins to
turn to the left.
So that's your cue--
hand entry, start to turn.
Then when we want to bring
our head back into the water
is when we start
to catch the water
or we start to pull the
water with that arm.
So we want to be able
to put that in motion.
We want to put
those two together
where we start to pull
through or start to catch,
the heads snaps back
into the center.
So you do that quite
quickly and with a bit
of assertiveness
and forcefulness
to snap it back into the center.
And that hip will
drive back down,
and you get to anchor
against that hip.
That's what gives
you the stability
to pull against
something, and that's
what the best swimmers
in the world do.
They time their stroke
and their breathing.
And they actually get quite
a bit of momentum and force
out of that--
their head coming
back into the water.
So if we look at
that first video,
you can say here if we want
that first cue to happen,
which is when the
hand enters, we
want to start to turn our head.
You can see he's just doing
it a little bit too late,
so he's missing that timing.
And then you can say how
he's looking up and out
of the water for too long while
that other arm comes over,
and he's already pulled through
too far with that left arm
before he starts to snap
his head back into place.
So just losing some of
that rhythm and momentum
that we want and not quite
getting as much propulsion
or not really vaulting over
that left arm out the front.
So just the timing
of your breathing
can throw out a lot of other
aspects of your stroke.
So think about those two cues
which is when the hand enters,
that's when you start
to turn your head.
And then when you want to
turn your head back around
is when you start to
pull through or start
to catch on that arm
that headed out in front.
Now, do you have
much time to breathe?
Not that much-- you've got
to be fairly quick with it.
And often almost the quicker
you are, the better off you'll
be to a certain point.
Now, you don't want to spend
all day out there breathing
because it's very hard to get
much power from your stroke
when your head's
off to the side.
For the most part, we want to
try and keep our head center
as much as possible and
spend as little time
as possible breathing as long as
you get the right amount of air
intake because the power
position is with the eyes
down and the head down.
