Breathing question?

Question

How come freestyle Olympics swimmers breathe in every other stroke during competition? How do you determine whether you should do more strokes before breathing?

Answer 1

Determining how many strokes you do per breath is something that just comes with experience. You don't want to hold your breath, so you have to exhale as you are swimming, but you don't exhale all in one gust, but gradually.
If you breathe too frequently, you will hyperventilate, and that is not a good thing. If you breathe too seldom, you will run out of oxygen, which means running out of energy.
Most freestylers use every other stroke in competition, but in training do drills where they breathe every third, fourth and fifth stroke, just to increase their lung capacity.

Answer 2

Breathing breaks your glide. So more breaths means more water resistance, water resistance slows you down and takes a few ticks off your record.

If you get cramps a lot, don't skip the breathing. Your muscles need oxygen.

Answer 3

Well on my team we think that you should breath every three strokes, and when you do, drive your chest and side or your cheek down and forward.

Answer 4

The reason why their heads are down because of there is less friction in the water and it makes you go faster and helps with gliding through the water, which reduces your time during the competetion.

Answer 5

turning your head to breathe slows you down, i think every motion is well planned to get the top speed for the swimmer

Answer 6

Keeping your head up more than you need to will create more friction and less aerodynamics.

Swimmers will use any strategy to give thim even the slightest edge to win.

Answer 7

use snorkeling gear no head turning required

Answer 8

idk why they do that...i try to at least do 10 strokes w/o breathing...it keeps u more consistent