It is almost always the exhale, not the inhale
Every swimmer who swallows water during freestyle thinks the problem is the breath in. It is nearly always the breath out. If you hold your breath underwater and then try to inhale and exhale at the same time as your mouth clears the surface, you are asking your lungs to do two jobs in the 0.6 seconds your face is turned sideways. Water gets in because your mouth is open, your lungs are half full of old air, and you are still moving forward at 1.4 m/s.
Fix the exhale and roughly 80% of the problem disappears on its own. The other 20% is head position and timing, which is what the five fixes below address.
Fix 1: Breathe out continuously underwater
Blow a slow, steady stream of bubbles from your nose and mouth for the entire time your face is in the water. Not one big blast just before you turn — a continuous trickle, like humming. By the time your mouth clears the surface your lungs are already empty, so the inhale takes a fraction of a second and you never have to force it.
Drill: stand in chest-deep water, submerge, and hum a note continuously for 10 seconds. Then do it while walking forward. Then do it while swimming 25 m. If you run out of air before the wall, you are exhaling too fast.
Fix 2: Rotate, don't lift
The most common mechanical error is lifting the head to find air, which drops the hips, kills your streamline and puts your mouth at an awkward angle where water pours in. Your head should stay in line with your spine and rotate with your body. The cue that works: one goggle lens stays in the water. If both lenses clear the surface, you lifted.
Rotation comes from the hips and shoulders, not the neck. Think of your body as a log rolling, with your head as part of the log. A useful dry-land check: stand up, cross your arms over your chest, and turn your whole torso 45 degrees to one side without moving your head relative to your shoulders. That is the position you want at the breath.
Fix 3: Time the breath with the pull, not the recovery
Breathe as your pulling hand sweeps past your chest and your opposite arm enters. Breathing too late — as the arm recovers over the top — means your body has already begun to roll back the other way and your mouth is dropping as you inhale. That is where the mouthful of water comes from.
The rhythm to feel: catch, pull, breathe, recover. If you count strokes, the breath should start on the same beat that your hand passes your hip. Swimmers who breathe late also tend to lift their head, so fixing the timing often fixes the head position for free.
Fix 4: Keep your chin tucked and use the bow wave
As you swim, water piles up in front of your head and dips slightly beside your mouth — the "bow wave." That depression is a pocket of air you can breathe from without lifting your head at all. To use it you need your chin slightly tucked and your head low, with the waterline crossing your forehead and one cheek.
Practise by swimming 25 m with your head in its normal position and only your eyes turning toward your shoulder — not your whole head. You will feel the pocket. It is smaller than you think, and it is enough.
Fix 5: Stop breathing every two strokes if you don't need to
New swimmers often breathe every stroke cycle because they never learned to be comfortable with a full lungful. That is fine. The problem is the opposite habit: forcing bilateral breathing (every three strokes) before you can exhale properly, which produces panicky, shallow, late breaths on the off side. Breathe every two strokes on your dominant side until the exhale is automatic. Then add a three-stroke pattern for 25 m at a time, in easy sets only.
Also check the small stuff: a leaking goggle seal makes you tense, and tension makes you rush the breath. If your goggles fog or leak, read why goggles fog up before you blame your breathing.
Troubleshooting by symptom
| What happens | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Water up the nose | Exhaling through the nose too late or not at all | Continuous hum-exhale; add a nose clip for a week if needed |
| Coughing after a breath | Inhaling while the mouth is still partly submerged | Delay the breath 0.2 s; rotate further before opening the mouth |
| Breath feels rushed and shallow | Lungs still half full when the mouth clears | Empty fully underwater; practise vertical bobs |
| Legs sink at the breath | Head lifted instead of rotated | One-goggle cue; press the chest down |
| Only one side works | Asymmetrical rotation or dominant-side habit | 6-1-6 drill, then three-stroke breathing in warm-up only |
A two-week practice plan
Ten minutes of drills at the start of each session, three sessions a week, is enough to rebuild the habit.
- Session A: 4 × 25 m side-kick (one arm forward, face down, breathe by rotating) + 4 × 50 m freestyle breathing every 2.
- Session B: 4 × 25 m 6-1-6 (six kicks on your side, one stroke, switch) + 6 × 50 m with a deliberate 3-second bubble exhale.
- Session C: 8 × 25 m freestyle, breathing every 3 on the odd lengths, easy pace, full rest.
Do not try to fix this at speed. Slow, exaggerated drills build the pattern; fast swimming just reinforces whatever you already do. Once the exhale is automatic, the breath becomes a non-event and you stop thinking about it — which is exactly the goal.
If you are also working on your stroke rate or want a target pace to swim these drills at, the pace guide has reference times by level.