Freestyle Breathing Technique: Too Late, Or Too Slow?

Freestyle Breathing Technique: Is My Breath Late, Or is it Slow?

By: Coach Chris Coghill

Breathing is often one of the most difficult aspects of swimming technique to master.  Swimming is unique in athletics because our face spends the majority of time in the water, meaning there is technique needed to put ourselves in a position to inhale, which no other sport can replicate. Whether we are learning the basics of blowing bubbles and exhaling underwater, or perfecting the timing of our breath into our stroke, there are many opportunities for great technique, and just as many to form bad habits.

Breathing is all about efficiency. At a basic level, we need to breathe to ensure that our muscles continue to receive the oxygen that they require to perform at a high level. In swimming, the breath is also about efficiency because we need to be able to complete our breath while creating as little drag as possible and maintaining an effective stroke. A significant part of this comes from the timing of our breath. There are two main timing mistakes for freestyle breathing: late or slow breaths.

A slow breath is exactly what it sounds like: a breath that takes too long to be completed. What this does in timing is leaving your head to the side for longer than necessary, slowing your stroke rate down, and also throwing your body off balance.

In the picture to the left, we can see Olympic Gold Medalist Katie Ledecky nearing the end of her breath. Katie has an incredibly quick and efficient breath. In the picture, you can see she is returning her face into the water after her breath well before her pulling arm is recovering, enabling her to get her head back to the ideal neutral position for the next pull.

A late breath is an entirely different issue, which can seem to be the same at first diagnosis. A late breath can lead to the same negative result as a slow breath. A late breath, even if it is executed quickly, can still place the swimmer off balance during the pull phase of their stroke, as well as interrupting the stroke rate and causing inefficiency. A late breath is most often caused by a swimmer bringing their head to the breath position purely through body rotation, without using their neck to turn in addition to the rotation.

The swimmer to the right is breathing far too late, as their breath is clearly only connected to their rotation, and not utilizing their neck. This is causing them to turn too far and look up during their breath, rather than to the side. Even if their breath is quick, because they are breathing only through their rotation, their body position is dramatically off balance and delaying their stroke rate.

The goal for timing of the breath is for a swimmer to begin their breath as the pull passes through and the shoulder opens up. The breath is connected to the rotation, but NOT dependent on it. The neck must be turned in addition to the rotation to ensure an on time breath.

As seen in the picture of Olympic Gold Medalist Nathan Adrian, we can see that he is beginning to initiate his breath with his neck as his arm is pulling past. By the time his shoulder passes all the way through on his right side, he will be up in his breath, and returning quickly, having a perfectly executed breath, neither late, nor slow.
Former Stanford Women’s coach and 6 time US Olympic team coach Richard quick once said “Don’t hide your breathing mistakes by not breathing, fix them instead.” Often time’s coaches will instruct swimmers to breath less because it slows them down. But since our bodies do require oxygen, every swimmer is better off learning how to breath efficiently, and breathing as needed. By correctly diagnosing if a swimmer’s breath is late or slow, or both, then you can start to work to correct it and enable the swimmer to breath efficiently and improve their swimming.