1.8. How to Breathe Properly when Swimming Freestyle – where should You Look Underwater?

You’ve probably seen many versions of front crawl at the pool. I must say, it’s a big misfortune that most people swim it wrong from the beginning.
In crawl, it’s important that the head doesn’t fly around, which often happens with self-taught swimmers.
Imagine your body and head being skewered on a stick, and you’re rotating only sideways like on a spit. Not upwards.
The head points either down (when exhaling) or to the side (when inhaling).
When exhaling, we try to look straight down at the bottom line of the pool, maybe slightly forward.
If you lift your gaze too far forward and tilt your head, it usually ruins the position of the whole body – your hips will drop, your legs will sink deep down, and that creates a huge resistance in the water and an insane amount of effort to push the body forward.
Even for triathletes who need to watch where they swim and the rest of the competitors, looking forward while swimming crawl is ineffective – it slows you down.
The ideal position is looking down, slightly forward at about 45°, exhaling into the water, and then turning the head directly to the side to inhale, and returning the same way.