Why I Began Breathing Bilaterally after 25 Years

In August 1972, in the first 10 minutes of the first workout I ever coached, I noticed that every swimmer on the team I’d just begun coaching had asymmetrical strokes. Those who breathed to the left torqued noticeably in that direction; right breathers did the same to the other side.

While I had no formal knowledge of stroke mechanics at the time, instinct told me that these excessive sideways motions probably hurt efficiency. When I instructed the team to breathe to the ‘wrong’ side the next day, their lack of symmetry disappeared. Before long I made it a standard requirement for the swimmers I coached to breathe bilaterally during practice.

Just above I wrote that a primary reason breathing in freestyle is such a frequent occasion for stroke errors is the difficulty of keeping the body aligned, stable and traveling forward when 8 percent of body mass repeatedly moves to the side. When we move that 8% only to one side, it’s inevitable that, over time, the body accommodates these uneven forces in various ways—none of which promote efficiency.

Though I required my swimmers to breathe bilaterally as early as the 1970s, when I got serious about improving my own efficiency in the early 1990s, I was still a unilateral breather—breathing almost exclusively to the left, as I’d done since 1964.

One day in March 1992, I decided to breathe to the right for an entire 800-meter swim. I was swimming in Los Banos del Mar, a 50-meter pool in Santa Barbara. For some time, I’d made it a habit to count my strokes. It really got my attention that my stroke count improved from 41 SPL (strokes per length) breathing to my habitual left side to 39 breathing to my unfamiliar right side. Though breathing to the right felt awkward, that measurable improvement in efficiency motivated me to continue. For several months, I breathed more to the right than to the left, which helped me adapt more quickly. I’ve been a bilateral breather ever since.

If you’ve always breathed to one side, it will feel awkward for a time. There will be a learning curve. But if you apply the series of Focal Points above to breathing on your weak side as well, you’ll soon feel much more comfortable.

Don’t be surprised if eventually your awkward side feels smoother and more comfortable than your natural side. That’s been true for me for 10 years.  And because of insights and awareness gained from my more-efficient right side, my natural left side is massively more efficient today than it was when I only breathed one way.

Your primary goal is to make your left and right sides identical in every regard. I guarantee that the effort to do so will make you a far more efficient swimmer.

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