Swim breathing

I breath every 4 on most efforts and then down to 3 or 2 on hard repeats.

When I get gassed I typically find it is because of not breathing out fully. Just a few breaths where I really exhale fully brings me back to balance.

Exhaling underwater is important so that you can get a full breath on the breath.

I'd still recommend that you at least try doing unilateral (all right or all left) breathing and see how it goes. If I bilateral breathe, I also feel like I'm gasping for air after a few hundred yards at race pace since it's just not enough oxygen for me, whereas I'm fine for 2000 at the same pace if I breath unilaterally since it's a breath every 2nd instead of every 3rd stroke. 

I do all of my training breathing unilaterally now, mainly because of this - I can go harder.

I do breath out underwater, the issue is I'm not done with the exhale by the time I'm starting to lift my head to breath so I tend to do a final exhale "burst" to get the remainder out .. I think this heavily contributes to the eventual gasping as it's not a rhythmic breathing, rather it's choppy..

Which brings up another challenge, I can't seem to find the ideal head placement to get air in without a lot of water... I've read that very little of the head actually needs to exit the water however when I try that I gulp water...I finally was able to get a little video on my swim technique and I was amazed at how far out of the water I'm bringing my head to breath...

As for breathing every stroke, If I do that, I feel like I'm not ready yet for air so it seems forced to exhale.  Essentially it's a quicker version of the same problem with bi-lateral breathing... 

IF my problem is not exhaling enough under water before raising my head to breath, should I be attempting to go to the 4-strokes with my breath on the same side?  I.E., 4 strokes, breath on the right, repeat...?

Thanks everyone.

The Gary Hall Sr. video raised an interesting point about oxygen deprivation as a result of  the 1:3 ratio breathing every third stroke...I don't quite understand his 2:3 technique but I'm definitely going to start experimenting with breathing every stroke to more approximate "normal" breathing...

Then maybe I'll dig in to the 2:3 ratio....

Second paragraph is exactly what I do now.  Masters coach recently told me to breathe every cycle (and even throw in a "double" or breathe to the right and immediately to the left every so often) for tri.  His point was that OWS is different from trying to go 50m or 100m as fast as possible.  At first this seemed like a lot of air, but another swimmer in the group and my kids' other coach (she's won several 70.3's - outright, not AG) does the same so it seems to work in the specific setting of tri!  

I'll point out that I have a life long addiction to oxygen, though, unlike real swimmers (my kids, for instance, don't seem to need so much air).    Seriously, the advice to practice breathing every two has helped me, and I practice it in our local outdoor pool by always breathing to the same side of the pool (so, half to one side, half to the other) - usually avoiding sun in my eyes.  I do also throw in a left/right breath every lap or two, especially coming up to the wall.

I actually used the left/right thing a couple times in a race last weekend.  I got gassed surging to stay with a pair of feet I was drafting when he tried to shake me, and the double breath once or twice helped get me back from the brink.  I also think it's helped my form, as it seems that if I am swimming "right," it's fairly easy to take a breath without throwing my stroke off (that did not used to be the case).

Matt

That's a long race! 

Mark

Thanks for all the good information.  Many things to start working on.  To the poster who mentioned my 4 strokes (or maybe it's 5) then breathing technique being almost hypoxic, that's exactly what I was wondering about... Almost getting light headed at the end...

Back to the pool Monday morning early, can't wait to get started...