You are 4 steps away from breathing like a pro swimmer!

On this video you'll learn how to breathe like this. If you don't know how to properly breathe you won't be able to improve any other part of your swimming. Most people think it's all about the head movement, but it's not so. You need at least 4 skills to be able to breathe like this. The first skill you need to learn is the rhythm of the breath. This is what most people who start swimming get wrong and causes them to panic or feel distress. In every stroke you have to take a quick breath and hold it. But let's start with freestyle since it's the most popular of the strokes. Some people teach slowly releasing the air through your nose while your head is underwater. I don't like this approach for two reasons. Here do this with me. Take a quick breath in and then start exhaling slowly for as long as you can. If you didn't last for at least 8 seconds while calmly watching this video you won't last 2 seconds while swimming. Slowly exhaling is a useful skill for singers but not for beginner swimmers. Now follow along my breathing pattern while I swim freestyle breathing every 3 strokes. Ready? Notice how I first exhale through my nose a little and then through my mouth. Then I take a quick breath through my mouth and hold it until the next exhale. You might have gotten a little dizzy just doing that. But that's because you aren't exercising and you started breathing as if you were. Now that you've mastered the rhythm of the skill of quick breaths the second skill to master is timing. This is where starting to exhale through your nose is important. When you rotate your head to breathe there is inevitably a little bit of water in your nose which can get deeper if you don't exhale a little bit through your nose first. Once that's cleared exhale through your mouth as you rotate your head. Then as soon as you feel you are exhaling out of the water take a quick breath and bring your head back down. The third skill you need to master is horizontal balance. To breathe properly you need to be horizontal in the water and very close to the surface. The second reason I don't like to teach exhaling slowly in the water is because it decreases your floatability and you sink deeper. As you know bubbles float and if your lungs are full you will float too. But your lower body doesn't have lungs with air so they naturally sink. To fix this you don't need strength or effort. You need balance. Developing balance takes time but we can short that time with these drills. Grab the wall and kick fast. Feel how the hips go up. That's good. But you don't need to kick that fast for the legs and hips to go up. Gradually start slowing down your kick but try maintaining the hips up. You might feel like you are pushing your upper body down with your hands and that's good. Now kick in a superman position like this while pushing your chest down. You can do this face up too and then do it sideways with one arm down. Once you are kicking sideways and very close to the surface the next skill you need to focus on is rotation. If you watch closely I don't turn my head too much to breathe, I rotate my whole body or at least the upper body. The head here is in a much easier place to just take a quick breath. So while you are kicking sideways take your head out a little with one ear still touching the water and take a quick breath. Do one stroke to rotate to the other side and take another quick breath. The repetition of these drills is important because we naturally tend to go back to our sinking legs and our messed up breathing patterns. Even the best swimmers in the world still do balancing drills and focus on their breathing patterns very often. If you want to keep learning click on this playlist here and if you want to visit our webpage click here. See you there! Swim fast!