Head Movement for Breaststroke Breathing

I am 70 year old learning to swim breaststroke. My problem is coordinating breathing with the correct head movement for breaststroke breathing. I can't get my head high enough consistently, to breathe in every time. I would appreciate advice on how to overcome this problem. Thank You

Breathing is not simply a matter of lifting your head but more due to the movement of your whole body.

Two factors will determine how easily you can lift you head out of the water to breathe. Your body’s ability to float and the amount of propulsion generated from your leg kick.

Your body’s ability to float depends on your relative density. Without getting into detailed physics, basically some people float and some people do not and it depends on how fat or thin we are.

You can help your body to float by relaxing more in the water, which is difficult to do when you are learning to swim.

Breaststroke is performed with the body position at a slight angle, with the legs lower in the water. The leg kick provides most of the propulsion from the powerful whip action and it is this whip action that will cause the body to rise slightly.

The rise of the body and lifting of the head over the water surface is then assisted by the arm action. The arm pull is outward and slightly downward and this together with the leg kick will provide enough lift to breathe.

Combine all this with a nice relaxed body position and your overall floating position in the water will be higher.

Swimming slowly can sometimes make everything easier. It is very easy when you are learning to swim to almost try too hard. To kick hard, pull hard and end up fighting your way through the water and this results in a lot of effort for little distance swum. Slow right down and feel your way through the water. You might be surprised at how far you can and how easy it is.

Our best-selling book 'The Complete Guide to Swimming Breaststroke' contains over 20 separate swimming exercises to help all parts of breaststroke, including breathing and timing. You can download it, print out the parts you need and take them to your pool to try out. Click the link below for more information.

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