How do you side breath during swimming?

Question

I'm having trouble side breathing during swimming. You know how a person turns their head to their side so they can breath? Yeah , every time I side breath , water gets into my mouth/nose , then I automatically stop using my arm/leg movements because my nose feels weird/funny ;[. That is the worst experience I've had during swimming. I wanna side breath the RIGHT way because in high school I'm going to have a test on it. help?

Answer 1

Chasing,

This is a frustrating skill to master for novice swimmers. A lot of it deals with the comfort level of the swimmer. But this is mainly a technical problem.

There are two main techniques you can use to avoid your problem:

1.) Exhale your air (blow bubbles) as or slightly before you rotate your head to breathe. If you attempt to exhale and then inhale during the head turn you'll lose a lot of momentum and the 'pocket', that's formed from the combination of your forward momentum and head rotation, will collapse.

2.) Try to tuck your chin by touching it to your shoulder during your 'head rotation'. A lot of swimmers with this problem tend to 'lift' their head and face slightly forward. The result will be a mouthful of water.

Hope that helps.

Enjoy!

Answer 2

The best way to practice that i found is to go to the side of the pool, put your arms straight out in front of you and hold the edge of the pool, put your head in the water, and kick you feet while holding yourself in place. Turn your head to the side, take a breath then return back to the water and breath out through your nose. when you need a breath, turn to the side and take another. Keep repeating until you feel comfortable with the movement and turning your head to the side.

When swimming, you need to control the rate of your exhale so you are able to breath out slightly as you turn your head if you have a problem of taking in water.