BREATHING

In butterfly more than in any other stroke, the timing of breathing is important. Swum correctly, the butterfly is a rare combination of power and grace—literally poetry in motion. But like its namesake, it can be a fragile creature. Each of its parts—the arm stroke, the leg kick, the body motion, and the breathing—fit together to form a rhythmic, flowing, almost organic whole. When even one part is out of sync, the entire stroke is affected. If you breathe at the wrong time, your streamlined body position will immediately be altered, resistance will increase, and your stroke will deteriorate rapidly. So you must breathe at precisely the right moment.

But when is the right moment? The correct time to inhale is at the highest point of your stroke—near the very end of the arm pull and during the downbeat of the second kick (see Fig. 10.4). As you inhale, extend your neck and push your chin slightly forward, but do not lift it from the water. Try to curl your lips outward so water does not enter your mouth.

As soon as you have inhaled, return your face to the water an instant before your hands enter to begin the next stroke. As the arm pull progresses through its keyhole pattern, exhale slowly through your mouth and nose. Just before you are ready to breathe again, give a forceful puff of air. Now, as you complete the final thrust of the arm stroke, your face will lift out of the water and you can inhale again.

In butterfly, unlike in breaststroke, you do not need to breathe every stroke. How often you breathe is partly a matter of personal preference and partly a function of your conditioning, your lung capacity, and how far you are swimming. The farther you swim, the more often you need to breathe. However, the less often you need to breathe, the easier it is to maintain the proper body position. Assume, for instance, that you decide to breathe every second stroke. Simply hold your breath throughout the first arm cycle. Then inhale and exhale during the second arm cycle.

I generally breathe every third or fourth stroke when swimming a sprint of 50 yards or meters. In a 100-yard race, I breathe every other stroke. On those rare instances when my usually well-buried masochistic streak rears its ugly head and I convince myself to swim a 200-yard fly, I find I need to breathe every stroke except for the first and last laps.

No matter what the distance, strive to maintain a consistent breathing pattern. Mark Spitz, for example, always breathes every second stroke in the 100-meter butterfly. When he swam the 200-meter fly, he adopted a 2-1-2-1 pattern: two strokes then a breath, one stroke then a breath, and so on. In any event, what is important is to establish a consistent pattern. Do not try to swim as far as you can on the first breath, then come up gasping for air. It doesn’t work.

While almost all butterflyers breathe to the front, occasionally you will see a swimmer who breathes to the side, as in the freestyle. No swimmer using this unorthodox style has been more successful than America’s Melvin Stewart. In 1991 Stewart established a global mark for the 200-meter fly at the world championships. A year later he reasserted his dominance of the event by garnering Olympic gold, outstroking his nearest pursuer by almost two seconds.

Does this mean that it is best to breathe to the side when swimming the fly? Probably not. Pablo Morales, who won the 100-meter fly at the Barcelona games, breathes to the front. So do Qian Hong of China and America’s Summer Sanders, winners of the women’s 100- and 200-meter events at the ’92 Olympics. So too did all the other 1992 finalists in all four Olympic butterfly events. Why? Because breathing to the front is a more fluid, natural motion when swimming the butterfly. It takes less effort and is more efficient.

Not only that, but the rules require that when you swim the fly you maintain a level position in the water at all times. When you breathe to the side, there is a tendency to roll. Stewart is able to maintain a flat body position while breathing to the side because he is endowed with unusual strength and flexibility. There is no harm in trying side breathing if you want to, but the chances are you’ll find front breathing far easier.

To sum up:

1. Inhale at the very end of the arm stroke.

2. Breathe only as often as you need to.

3. Establish a consistent breathing pattern.