Magnuson demonstrates great technique utilizing a side-looking breath in butterfly. There are many swimmers that use this technique, but curiously, the forward breath persists in many butterflyers. I believe this is because many swimmers will not take the time to learn it and coaches will not take the time to teach it. If you can learn, it can be advantageous for several reasons:
1. Allows the swimmer to stay lower to the water on the breath, which means more of the swimmer's energy is directed to going forward.
2. Because of #1, the swimmer may be able to breathe more often without sacrificing speed.
3. Enables the swimmer to see the competition more effectively than with a forward breath. If the swimmer can breathe to both sides, this is an even more useful skill.
If you want to learn to breathe to the side in butterfly, here are a few pointers.
1. Work on your neck flexibility. In my opinion, this is the primary reason why swimmers who try side-breathing have difficulty - tightness in their neck prevents them from doing it correctly.
2. Be sure to keep your hips and shoulders on plane. By this I mean don't let your body roll to the side simply to get your side-breath.
3. Continue to do all the other technical elements of butterfly correctly. Strong kick, strong pull, good body dolphin, etc. The importance of these hasn't changed at all!
Frankly, I don't agree with the side-breathing technique for butterfly. Unlike freestyle, a swimmer's body cannot rotate; therefore, if one were to breath to the side during butterfly, it (I say "it" in order to be politically correct) would have to lift its shoulders higher than necessary in order to prevent excess water from entering the mouth (meaning the swimmer will NOT be lower to the water). Unless one can rotate its head farther than 90 degrees past vertical, the lifting of the shoulders will create unnecessary drag, making the butterfly harder than it needs to be --- this problem can be overcome by breathing foward. More importantly, if technique is not practiced perfectly during side-breathing fly (that means practicing bilateral breathing as well), it will lead to a lop-sided stroke, neck cramps, and unnecessary drag.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, I wasn't clear, sorry. Let me try to explain better:
ReplyDeleteYou made a good point when you said that breathing to the side keeps a swimmer closer to the water and costs less energy; unfortunately, though, you are overlooking an important difference between butterfly and freestyle. Unlike butterfly, in freestyle a swimmer can roll its body in order to bring its face out of the water. In butterfly, in order to breath to the side, the swimmer must rotate the head while the body is in a prone position. For most swimmers doing butterfly, the range of motion in the neck is too limited in order to lift the mouth out of the water by side-breathing (a 90 degree turn of the neck is the limit for any human I've ever met). Consequently, a side-breathing butterfly swimmer will have to lift its head slightly above the surface of the water in order to breath (which is exactly what a forward-breathing butterfly swimmer does anyways); in fact, most side breathers that I've seen tend to lift their heads higher above the water than forward breathers do (which creates unnecessary drag, making the butterfly less ergonomic). So although breathing to the side isn't negative, your reason for it being positive (the swimmer stays lower to the surface of the water) is faulty. I apologize if earlier I made it sound like there is no good in side-breathing butterfly; there is in fact one benefit, and you mentioned it (swimmers can see their competition more effectively). However, in my humble opinion, the risks of practicing side-butterfly incorrectly (lop-sided stroke, added stress on the neck, etc) outweigh any benefit of taking the time to do it correctly.