Swim questions - breathing

I suggest you stop trying to bilateral breathe. 

Just breathe on your left one direction, and on your right the other. Or just pick a side and stick with it. You'll get more air, and a better workout. 

^^This.  Bilateral breathing doesn't necessarily mean right, left, right, left, etc.  Breathe as often as you need to, and if that's every right or every left that's ok, just switch sides every once in a while.  The point is being able to breathe on either side in case there's crashing waves or glaring sunshine on one side.

Agreed.   IMO bilateral breathing is highly overrated.  Sure it might come in handy on occasion, but in general just sticking to your natural side is far more effective.

Yes.

Not only is it over-rated, 99% of distance swimmers (well, 99% of the fast ones) don't do it while racing or while swimming fast in training. You can confirm this for yourself if you look at distance swim racing videos on youtube (there are 1000s of them).

Learn to breath on both sides--yes. Switch off from right to left or vice versa--yes.

But when you're swimming fast, you need to breath often--so that's every right arm stroke (or every left arm stroke).

Actually in one of the last triathlete magazine they suggest breaht left, right,left,break,right,left,right,break, etc...

Meaning youget even more air than right, break,right or left,break,left...

It seems to me as their is way to much movement though

Something to remember about any swim advice you get from magazines, from BT, from ST, wherever: check for yourself to confirm it is correct (or not). It's easy enough to do via the powers of video on the internet.

Do elite or just plain fast distance (this is important, sprinters do quite different things) swimmers or fast-in-the-water triathletes do it? If yes, then you might be on to something. If no, well, you might need a new 'swim advisor' ...

   Yes, over time your swim workout should get easier.  Here is why: Your muscles that are being used during a swim workout will actually develop more capillary beds in them (greater blood supply=more energy).  Your lung capacity will not change (you have what you were born with), but you might not be using it to the fullest right away and the more you use them, the healthier they become, etc.  Your body is very lazy and will adapt to anything you put it through.  Just like an alcoholic develops a tolerance for alcohol, your body will adapt to swimming so that it becomes easier. 

I consistently trained bilateral breathing in a pool, taking a breath every third stroke.  As I mentioned in another post, I really struggled catching my breath for the first couple hundred yards doing it that way.  Thanks to comments from forum readers and a helpful poolside coach I changed two things that have really helped.  1) I have gone from bilateral breathing every three strokes, to breathing four or five times on the right, and then four or rive times on the left.  This allows me to get more air so I don't feel like I'm drowning at the beginning of a swim or at the end--times when I tend to be pushing a little harder.  In the middle of a swim, once I am warmed up, relaxed, and going at an even pace, I sometimes slip into a three stroke bilateral breathing style--kind of like a steady cruise control.  But I find that I am actually faster taking a breath every stroke on one side or the other.  2) Making sure to exhale naturally when my face is in the water so that I don't have to exhale at all when I come up for a breath.  This allows me to take in more air.  What I found was that while I was indeed exhaling under water, I wasn't exhaling enough, so that when I turned my head for air, I had to take a further short exhale before inhaling. The other point about a good exhale under water is that you rid the body of CO2 which builds up in the blood if you don't properly exhale it from the body.  The result of this built up CO2 is the feeling of suffocation, exacerbated by the elevated heart rate of swimming fast.

Breathing one one side at a time, alternating sides every so often, and taking special note to naturally exhale under water did wonders for my swimming.

Back in the day I was in a pool for at least 20+ hours a week.  From my experience the suggestions above about NOT needing to bilateral breathe all the time is spot on.  You should learn to breathe on both sides so you are comfotable with it but on any given day or any given set, do what feels best.

When you get to an OWS breathe on the side that gives you the best spotting position.  I would always prefer to be able to see the markers on any breath in rhythm.