Egor Kornev’s Mindset on Breathing During 50 Free: Do It By Feel and Maintain Body Position

Rising Russian superstar Egor Kornev has leaped into the spotlight of men’s sprint freestyle after blasting a 21.06 50 freestyle at the Russian Swimming Championships. However, one thing that sets Kornev apart from the usual is his breathing pattern in the 50 freestyle.

In an interview on the MySwimPro YouTube Channel, Kornev and coaches Nikita Konovalov and Leo Sarigins detail Kornev’s approach to racing and some of the more distinctive things he does to find a balance between pain and control.

When talking about Kornev’s breathing, in which he notably took two during his 21.06 at the Russian Swimming Championships, his mindset on it is not a regulated pattern or specific number of breaths allowed during the race, but rather it is done based on feel.

“The breath is not because he is out of breath, or because he needs to breathe… his breathing situation is very much dependent on how the swim is going. For most people… you’d think that if when you take a breath usually you’d slow down, sink, and your body position would get ruined.” Sargins said in the interview on the MySwimPro YouTube Channel. “[Kornev] does it the complete opposite way… if he’s doing a 50 freestyle and he’s racing and he’s swimming very quick, if he feels like his body position is getting lower in the water and then takes a breath, it is then bringing his body position higher. It’s very systematic.”

Kornev has, at times, been known to take more than two breaths in the shortest race in swimming, but that number can fluctuate from race to race, completely dependent on where he feels his body position is after however many strokes.

“It’s not like he takes six strokes and knows he needs to breathe.” Sargins said. “It’s very much like, he dives in, he takes four strokes, if he feels like his body position is not in the right place, he takes a breath, which then aligns his body position… then he goes again, if he takes another six, eight, ten strokes… It’s very situational.”

Kornev’s breathing is not the only thing that is a bit different from his competitive peers, but some of the things he does outside the pool may also separate him from his competition.

“[Kornev and Konovalov] use a very interesting technique of standing on planks with nails in them… Swimming is very much about finding the balance between being tense and relaxed when you swim. You don’t want to ever swim and be super tense, and at the same time you don’t wanna swim and be completely relaxed.” Sargins said. “So they use this method after training, and the idea is the more you resist the pain of standing on them, the more you tense up in the heart, it will be. You won’t be able to work through the pain and stay relaxed, very similar to the last 50 of a 100 freestyle, where everything is hurting, and your instinct is to go tense and resist the pain of everything burning up in your body.”

Those training sessions, which are about 6,000 km per session, are currently a “huge aerobic block”, where he is very much in a “process-focused” mindset. In the interview, an escalator analogy was used to compare his training to walking down an escalator.

“When you are going down an escalator, you don’t think about the steps you are taking. Making sure you are hitting your stroke counts, making sure you are at the right heart rate, you’re doing the right things, you’re doing the right underwaters. It’s something that’s practiced every single day. So when you get to race day, it’s very much like, “This is what I’ve done in training.” I’m going to repeat the same process, and hopefully the outcome will be fast times.”