September 2nd, 2009 | 
Author: I have been swimming laps for a few days now and I am only comfortable swimming while breathing from one side than doing the every third rotating pattern. When I try to breath from my right side, its so awkward and I end up losing my balance and practically sinking. I don’t understand why I can do it just fine on my left and not my right. Is this not normal? Is breathing from one side the wrong way to do it?
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well in a comp. you do not get in truble if you do 2 rotations and then breath. and i half to do it cuz i can not do it from my right eather! so it is normal i think? lol but my swim team leder said it is ok!
It’s just that that side of your body is stronger than the other. I have the same thing, I predominately breathe on one side. In fact there are coaches who encourage this as a strategy. Others think that there’s more risk of injury on always breathing to one side (your stroke will be stronger on one side also). My coach made me breathe on either side. When I wasn’t forced, it was more comfortable on one. You can try to get used to it slowly, otherwise just keep doing what’s most efficient for your stroke (which may be the single side)
breathing from one side is ok, if ur not a competitive swimmer. If you are its much better to breathe from both sides because u can get a look on the other lanes u are racing. I would encourage taking a fludder board and kicking, having ur face in the water, and breathing from one side, then face in water for like a second, breathe from other. that should work with practice, but if it doesnt you’ll still be ok in competitions as long as u dont breathe every 2 (if u breathe from same side but not every stroke, like taking only 2-3 breaths a length). only thing you would be missing is seeing whether ppl are beating u or not, but i guess its better than sinking.
I got the same thing and I realised it was making me lose races, so try and persist to get yourself breathing on both sides. like the rest of swimming nothing comes easily, it takes work and persistance try and strengthen the other side of ur body with weights to try and equalize it so it feels less awkward…
happy swimming
I used to have trouble breathing on both sides too. It’s just one of those things you have to keep practicing during practice. Eventually you or your coach might decide that you do better when only breathing on one side, but I think that you should definitely get comfortable breathing on both sides and see what happens from there.
i’ve had that problem too.
but i just kept praticing and it got better.
thats normal…i have the same problem…i cant breath to my right side either…ive been trying to fix it and almost everyone can bilateral breath, but not me…im still the best on my team, so im not too worried about it…just continue working hard, it shouldnt slow you down any
very normal, most elite swimmers only breathe to the side they’re most comfortable with while competing
if you want to make your stroke more even (if you were competing) your coaches would tell you to start breathing every 3 or 5 strokes in all practices to get used to it. if you’re exclusively a lap swimmer, it’s not a big deal. the more you practice it, the more natural it’ll feel.
Nope, it’s just fine. I breathe only on my right, every third stroke when doing free style. Only racers really need to breath to both sides, so they can check on the position of their competition. Do what’s comfortable.