Learning Freestyle With Breathing

I am 35 years old and just learning how to swim. I am learning freestyle with breathing. The problem is that I can swim freestyle, but when I try to breathe on my side, my face is still all the way in the water. I cannot seem to figure out what I am doing wrong. Do you have any idea as to what I might be doing wrong?

It could be as simple as your head being too deep in the water. Have someone check your body position to see if firstly you are flat and horizontal and secondly how deep your head is.

Perform a ‘push and glide’ away from the poolside and ensure you are looking down and slightly forward. With your arms extended out in front of you and your hands together, your body position should be flat and horizontal and the top of your head should be out of the water.

If your head is too deep in the water, it will require a larger movement sideways in order to breathe. This could be the reason you are struggling to get your mouth to be clear of the water when to attempt to take a breath.

Another possible cause of your problem could be the timing of your breath in relation to your arm pulls.

It’s obvious that whichever side you wish to breathe the respective arm needs to have pulled back in order to make room for the head to turn into to take your breath.

As the arm pulls back and begins to recover over the water surface it causes the shoulders to roll which in turn allows for greater movement of the head when it turns. It is this shoulder roll that sometimes gets forgotten or reduced in an attempt to maintain a horizontal body position.

You will probably over-compensate to begin with by recovering your arm too high and rolling your shoulders a little too much but go with it. It’s best to get some breaths in and continue swimming than not breathing at all. Once you have got the hang of the basic breathing technique then adjust the rest of your swimming technique afterwards.

Our best-selling book 'The Complete Guide to Swimming Front Crawl' contains over 20 separate swimming exercises to help all parts of freestyle, including breathing and body position. 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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