Rhythmic Breathing in Backstroke

By TERRY LAUGHLIN

After over four decades of swimming, I finally learned the right breathing pattern for backstroke…or at least one that works for me. It’s stunning to learn something so fundamental after so long, but I believe most swimmers probably have not given it much thought. In the other three strokes, your face submerges between breaths so you have to breathe when your mouth surfaces. That dictates timing and rhythm. In backstroke, there’s nothing similar to regulate breathing.

I realized I had a problem last December while racing a 400 Individual Medley (IM) in a Masters meet. During the backstroke I was breathing twice in every stroke cycle, inhaling and exhaling on each armstroke. Fast, shallow breathing caused me to hyperventilate. I spent the Breaststroke and Freestyle segments gasping and trying unsuccessfully to recover from breathlessness.

In the weeks that followed I had similar experiences on IM training repeats. I tried inhaling on one arm and exhaling on the other. It was difficult to adapt to the new timing, but even after doing so, I frequently choked on splash while inhaling – after which it would take me another full breathing cycle to clear the water from my mouth and throat, which reinforced my feeling of breathlessness. That wasn’t working either.

Then, one evening in January, after yoga and weight training, I decided to swim easy Backstroke in the Endless Pool at the TI Swim Studio to relax. I began to experiment with breathing rhythms. Initially I was choking as before. Then I recalled that, in freestyle, my inhale is short and sharp, while my exhales are a bit more sustained. Because backstroke allowed time for a more sustained inhale, I had more time to swallow water.

So I experimented with a short, sharp inhale just before my right hand entered, then sustaining the exhale through that stroke and the beginning of the right arm recovery. It still didn’t feel quite right. Reflecting on the fact that I’m a natural left-side breather in freestyle, I tried inhaling sharply just before my left hand entered. I immediately sensed this is how I was meant to breathe.

It was exhilarating, after 40 years of swimming backstroke to finally feel a “rightness” about breathing. As I got comfortable I experimented further, allowing water to wash over my face for most of my exhale, then surfacing my face just briefly for the inhale. I’d seen former world record holder Lenny Krayzelberg do this but had never made the connection.

That felt even better! Letting water wash over my face encouraged me to emphasize exhaling through my nose. It also gave me, for the first time ever, a distinct sense of a breathing rhythm in Backstroke, similar to those I’m familiar with in the other strokes – in which the face is submerged between breaths. I’d long had a sense of stroke rhythm, but this was the first time in my life I could sense a backstroke breathing rhythm.

It felt so good I finished up with some Individual Medley cycles in the current, with my focus on repeating the same number of breathing cycles in each stroke. Usually I count strokes, taking twice as many for the long axis strokes – e.g. 8 strokes Fly, 16 Back, 8 Breast and 16 Free. Counting breaths on each stroke has the same effect, but it increased my focus on breathing rhythm.

I completed a round of 8 breaths on each stroke, then 10 of each, 12 of each, 14 of each and 16 of each, without break. I.E. As soon as I completed my series of 8 freestyle breaths (16 strokes) I started immediately on 10 breaths (and strokes) of Fly. Focusing on breathing rhythm in all strokes made my IM feel better than ever before.

Watch video of Terry practicing rhythmic breathing in Backstroke.