fly: drag and breathing

[swimbunnies]

I don't understand why I drag my fly when I'm stroking, but not breathing! :mad:

I breathe every other time during fly, and when the second time comes around, and when my head's down in the water, I feel TREMENDOUS drag throughout my shoulders. I think my hips are still on top of the water, rather than below and dragging my legs down. Is it because I'm not arching my back enough to spring out of the water?

Secondly, when I DO breathe for fly, I come up too far, just a little bit above my button. Way too far. "Reach with your eyebrows, not your nose" is what I've heard, but when I try to keep my head down, and breathe, I just swallow loads of water. Am I not arching my back enough, or kicking hard enough to get myself that far into the air?

Thanks

[Pete]

If you are feeling drag when your face is in the water it is probably becauase you are pushing your head too deep forcing the hips too high and having a large part of the body to resist the water.
When breathing it is not about lifting the head and therefore the shoulders out of the water. This causes the hips to drop causing resistance. Think about pushing the chin forwards to breath. You should be breathing at the end of the pull so you need to be pushing the chin forwards towards the end of the pull and getting the face back in the water before your hands enter.
Check with your coach, I am sure he will agree.

[aswim]

About the breathing in fly. I use to have the same problem. would swallow all the water! i have amended it by keeping lower and it mainly works. You seem like you have tried most things like this, but there is another way. instead of breathing to the front you could breathe to the side. My coach likes this method as it keeps you low and saves for gulping down the pool! As long as you can keep your shoulders still in the same position, it is a very efficent method. Give it a go and comment on your findings. Hope this helps ASWIM

[swimbunnies]

Thanks!

I've been practicing it all lately, for some reason, it never occured to me to just lift my head UP, rather than lifting my whole body just to breathe, lol. I tried the sideway breathing, it worked just as well, the only problem is that it developed kinks in my neck, since I couldn't rotate my body to porportion breathing from the side- but the technique works for me!

Thanks for the advice! :king:

[Odmaster]

I started breathing to the side a few months ago and can't understand why I never did so before!!!!!!! Much flatter.