How to make my swim exhale stronger?

I don't think it's because your chest is too weak so scratch that one. The angle doesn't matter either. Water is much denser than air so perhaps you are just feeling a little resistance. Not sure how long you've been swimming but breathing is one of the harder things to figure out. The best advice I give is to "just breathe normally". In fact, just practice blowing bubbles with your face in the water, forget the actual swimming part until you get this down.

It almost sounds like a claustrophobic-type thing.  Don't have much advice except to practice more and try to get used to it, and the blowing bubbles advice from the previous poster sounds like a good idea as well.

Go back to basics.

Stop swimming. Stand in the pool with your head in the water and just practice breathing in and blowing out (under water).

Also, are you blowing air out with your mouth open or closed? Meaning: through your nose or your nose and mouth?

I find it easier to breathe out underwater with my mouth open.

Great way to start.

It seems to me that you're running out of gas...

Try breathing through your weak side... Example. I am weaker on the left arm, therefore, I breathe through the left.
Also. start by breathing on he fourth stroke... Example: Right, left, Right, Breathe(left)...

Hope this helps

I'm a big fan of not swimming until you learn how to breathe. Like has been mentioned before, just go to the pool stand in waist deep water or lie on the steps if they are long enough, blow bubbles from your mouth AND nose and then slowly rotate your head to either side, take a little breath and repeat, and repeat, and then repeat some more. You don't even really need a pool, a hot tub, bathtub or even large bowl will work.

2 things to focus on while doing these breathing exercises:

1) Don't take a breath like it's your last, don't over-breathe, just take little tiny breaths. You don't want to take in more than you need because, don't forget, you have to blow it out.
2) You must be breathing IN or OUT the ENTIRE time. There is no in-between. Pay attn to this while doing your drills. Never hold your breath while swimming, even for a second.

It is almost impossible to learn to breathe, rotate, reach, pull, recover and kick all at the same time. Until you are breathing properly, you're just wasting time with the "swimming" part. If you are gassed after 25 or 50 meters, I'm certain that it is a breathing problem and not a fitness or swimming problem.

#1. I agree completely.  Just small breaths in.
#2  I'm a FOP swimmer, and i do not breathe out the entire time.  Maybe this is incorrect, but this is how I've been swimming since I was 5.  I definitely hold my breath, and then start exhaling when I'm about 1 stroke away from taking another breath.  I'd run out of air way too quickly if I exhaled the entire time.   I also tend to breathe every 3, 4 or 5 strokes.   That's what is most comfortable for me.

 

This post sums it up. The reason for either breathing in or out and no pause is that during a pause CO2 piles up, triggers a center in the nervous system for hyperventilation and off you are into a viscous cycle of constantly being breathless and has nothing to do with your fitness.
I still catch myself having a pause once in a while and it triggers the onset of hyperventilation. Takes me several breaths every other stroke to clear and back to bilateral brathing.

Yup...same for me.  Everything except the part about being a FOP swimmer...LOL...I'm still hanging with the M-BOP crowd! 

Ok, so my advice to the OP is maybe to try a few different things.  

This hyperventilation thing if you are not constantly breathing in or out could be true, I have no idea.  All I know is I would be gasping for air constantly in I did not hold my breath for a bit underwater.  I take small enough breaths that I don't think I'd even make it to breathe every stroke on the Left if I was exhaling constantly.  So it would never work given my preference is every 3 to 5.  In fact all growing up swimming we would do sets of 200s where you practice breathing every 3, 5, 7, & 9 by the 50.  You have to hold your breath, so those sets absolutely wouldn't work if 40 swimmers were hyperventilating.  In a race, watch the 50 free.  They breathe once on the way down and probably once on the way back.   I promise you they are not exhaling for a full 12 seconds on the way down and 12 seconds on the way back for all but the .5 seconds they turn their head for an inhale.

I have been swimming since I was 5 and never had an issue holding my breath or hyperventilating.  To the OP--I'm not saying any one way is right or wrong.  Take all this advice and you've got a lot of info to try different things and figure out what works for you.   But get your breathing nailed and swimming will get a lot better!

I totally hear you but don't forget, you've been swimming since the age of 5 and I assume the TS has much less experience than that. Doing sets of 200s or 50s is a different ball game than swimming 500+ yards/meters in a tri. I can't see any reason why a beginning swimmer should practice breathing every 3, 5, 7, 9 strokes. I think a beginner should keep it simple, breathe once per stroke cycle on either side through the nose and mouth. Breathe either in or out the entire time. As someone who recently struggled with the same thing, I'm just suggesting things that worked for me. Later they can work on bi-lateral (3) or every 4 (if they REALLY want to for some reason). I like to keep things flowing so I breathe every stroke cycle. If I hit a wave or something, no big deal as I don't empty and fill my lungs each time, I just wait till the next cycle, take a breath and I'm OK. Like you said though, everyone is different.

I agree with you completely.  My intention wasn't for him to do sets where he breathes every 3, 5, etc.  Was to illustrate that the exhale the entire time idea, if not it might lead to hyperventilation as someone else said, etc, might not be the case for him and just to try different things and see what seems to make it all click for him. 

That is a good point you are making about sprinters holding breath. I belive those hypoxic sets you are referring to are part of training for that. I honestly have to go back to few books on my shelf and try and review what is being said about breathing. I have Earnest Maglischo's Swimming Fastest and may check it for some answers.
I know I partly struggle with the same problem being covered here, flip turns included as I go into a huge O2 debt every turn. It is killing me. I am a 30min HIM swimmer, about 23-24min 1500m OWS (no wetsuit) and this breathing thing has been giving me hard time.
I belive, if I recall correctly, distance swimming requires as much O2 as possible in order to delay onset of fatigue (staying aerobic as long as possible) in the later stages of the swim. I belive Earnest Maglischo mentions that, Terry Laughlin too. Gordo Byrn in "Gioing Long" recommends breathing every other stroke during a race while training bileteral for balanced stroke, injury prevention....I just need to see is it constant, measured exhale under water until body/head rotates for the next inhale. Steve Tarpinian is another coach who mentions about breathing patterns.
Always great to hear an angle from someone who has been swimming since childhood. I have a 10 year old in my household who is a swimmer, may bring him into this discussion.
There maybe slight differences in approach to breathing between sprinters and distance swimmers, where we belong to the second group, or at least are trying to achieve that status.

That is the best post!  This helps me tremendously!  Thanks.

A Sports Factory swimming coach told me to humm when I exhale.  Its sounds a bit weird but it really helped me learn how to exhale better before I took a breath..So literally I go hmmmm underwater then turn a breath...