Breathing Pattern Options for Swimmers

Joanna Manaves serves as the director of planning and materials management for Peacock Foods. In her free time, Joanna Manaves enjoys both lap and recreational swimming.

While most other athletes can afford to let breathing take a secondary role to other elements of technique, a swimmer must be consciously aware of how the rhythms of inhalation and exhalation impact performance. First, the swimmer must learn how to coordinate inhalation with stroke and decide how many exhalation strokes occur between each inhalation. For most swimmers, this means deciding whether to inhale after every two exhalation strokes or every three.

Many swimmers find it easier to take one breath for every two strokes, which means inhaling on one side while stroking with one arm and then the other. It allows for maximum breathing and steady rhythm, though it does confine in-breathing to one side. This can limit the swimmer's field of vision and, if continued on the same side in the long term, lead to uneven muscle development.

For this reason, advanced swimmers often choose to embrace bilateral or three-to-one breathing. This technique requires the swimmer to take three strokes during the exhalation, which then allows him or her to inhale on the opposite side. This more difficult technique requires the swimmer to adapt to more carbon dioxide building up in the blood during exhalation and demands more stamina, though it does ultimately support a more even stroke.