1.11. Tips for Freestyle Breathing Training

If you don’t know where to start, here are a few tips for practicing crawl breathing:

• Start each training session by practicing exhaling into the water – this includes, for example, breathing to the side at the wall or side breaths while kicking with a kickboard and fins. Squats with jumps are also a great exercise.
• I also recommend alternating the breathing side – it will improve your overall respiratory coordination. Most people have one better side and one worse, but that’s totally fine; dedicate at least a few minutes of each training session to your weaker side.
• Another tip of mine is – get used to exhaling into the water when resting at the wall – first, it prevents your breathing from getting wild and hyperventilated when starting again, and second, it helps you find the optimal balance between inhaling and exhaling and allows you to rest better.
• And if your breathing isn’t 100% yet, limit the use of the snorkel, it won’t teach you how to breathe. In our course, we use it to help focus more on arms, legs, rotation, and gliding – because focusing on too many things at once is chaos. But as we know, breathing is priority number one, so if your breathing isn’t ideal, get rid of the snorkel.