Left Side Breathing

pc1/89/80-130
Today I started left-side breathing with drills I learned from the Korean swim videos. And for these initial 2 exercises, I used a kickboard.

1. Stationary left-side breathing with kickboard. The right arm holds the kickboard and is extended forward. The tip of the kickboard can touch the wall.
   
   With the left arm at the side, breath in at the left side and exhale down. This is essentially stationary coz no stroking is done. The kicking is just to balance the body horizontally.
   
   
2. Left-side stroking with kickboard. Hold the kickboard with both hands and push off. Stroke with the left arm only and breath to the left.
   
   Be sure the left hand's thumb brushes the thigh on exit. This ensures the palm is facing inward. It may be tough at first because a 6-beat kick may be required to be balanced.
   
   Upon reaching the "T" of the lane line, slow down and raise the kickboard so it doesn't slam onto the wall.

The drills were very good. I didn't feel pain while doing the exercises. Even though the water was cool, the 6-beat kick kept my heart-rate and temp up.

Over the past weekends, I bought 3 books, used but very cheap. And I must say I'm learning a lot (techniques and factoids). The first book is Swim for the Health of It by Ernest Maglischo and Cathy Brennan.

And the second is Swim Swim: A Complete Handbook for Fitness Swimmers by Katherine Vaz and Chip Zempel. Both for Php70, dirt cheap, although Magishcho's books is more useful.


And just last weekend I bought for Php95 an old hard-bound book Exercising for Fitness by Time-Life publications. Nice. Thank God for BookSale and the mall by my doorstep.