I have to confess that I was quite skeptical when Arena approached me to trial the ‘Freestyle Breather’. Don’t get me wrong – I love swimming as an exercise, and always try to swim at least once a week. I recommend swimming to all my clients as a great all over body exercise that doesn’t impact on the skeletal system. However, from being a small child learning to swim I’ve always hated getting water up my nose and in my eyes. Traditional nose clips always made me feel a bit claustrophobic, so it was with no small amount of trepidation that I donned the mask and slipped into the water!
From the off I was converted. Pushing off from the side the water just literally parted before my nose! I started to swim and was amazed by how free I felt – my technique has never been brilliant mainly because I’m always trying to keep my head out of the water. With the Freestyle Breather’ my swimming position changed and for the first time I was able to swim without lifting my head up. The Freestyle Breather creates an enhanced bow wave so I was able to literally plough my way through the water and ended up swimming twice as far as I normally would in a session. I could feel that my technique was improved – my head was in better alignment and the…
