Three tips to improve your front crawl breathing in open water

When transferring your front crawl from pool to open water, one of the most important elements is a comfortable and efficient breathing technique.

Take these three steps to see if you can improve your front crawl breathing:

1. Try exhaling/blowing out, while your face is in the water.
2. Turn your head every two strokes to either the left or the right, whichever is comfortable for you to breathe in.
3. Once you have mastered this type of breathing you can try breathing every three strokes. This is called bilateral breathing, but don’t forget to continue to exhale whilst your face is in the water.

Take a look at this front crawl breathing drills article for more information and tips for practising your breathing.

Pool Training Session

Try this pool training session to help practise your front crawl breathing technique.

Warm up

• 400 metres continuous swim as 200 metres front crawl, 100 metres backstroke and 100 metres of a stroke of your choice.

Main set

• 8×25 metres front crawl as 10 metres strong, 15 metres steady. Rest 15 seconds between each 25 metres . This will help with speed at the start and finish.
• 500 metres front crawl at a steady pace. Really concentrate on practising your breathing again.
• 200 metres front crawl kick holding a float out in front of you. Alternate between 25 metres strong kick and 25 steady kick. If you can’t manage this yet, then replace it with sets of 2×100 metres , 4×50 metres or 8×25 metres kick, resting for 15 seconds after each repeat.

Swim Down / Recovery Swim

• 400 metres as 200 metres backstroke, 100 metres  front crawl and 100 metres of a stroke of your choice. Keep a steady pace for this.

Total distance: 1700 metres