Breaststroke

This is the stroke that I have spent a great amount of time on over the past five months. As a swimmer it was by far my worst stroke, and there are concepts that I had and have a hard time realizing. I have produced some decent breaststrokers, but I believe most of them have been natural breaststrokers, and I knew that I wanted to better understand this stroke. This is what I have began to do with breaststroke.

Separation Drill: This is big for the swimmers not to tie the arms and legs together to a specific timing. Once they learn the skills separated, then you can move the kick and pull to create correct timing. In separation drill the swimmer will begin in a "pencil" (arms straight and legs straight). The swimmer will then do arm stroke back to pencil, followed by breaststroke kick back to pencil, and they will repeat the pattern. This drill makes them feel really funny, but it really gets them to break the stroke up and learn the two motions separately.

I now use the phrase, "Pull with the arms and drag the needle, and then kick and push the needle." The needle you pull is the legs with feet together, and the needle you push is the arms with hands together.

Breaststroke Kick: I realized that a swimmer can push water with the bottom of the feet in a breaststroke kick. For a long time, I felt like the inside side of the foot pushed the water. Now after watching good breaststrokers, I see that some people can actually turn their feet and propel themselves by pushing with the bottom of their feet. Using a buoy and doing Baby Breaststroke kicks have helped my swimmer begin to realize this. Baby Breaststroke kicks are when the legs stay straight and they rotate from the ankles to make a sweep with only their feet. This is extremely hard for some people, where some kids can do it very well.

Breaststroke arms: There are so many different ways for breaststroke arms. The out-press and release method; the out-press, down press, and then in scull; and the out press, down press, and sweep in press. The main thing I concentrate on is trying to not have the swimmers pull their elbows back during the pull, but instead keep the elbows in front of the torso.

Body Position: I think that body position can be one of the biggest factors to breaststroke, but many elite breaststrokers would argue because they don't have great body position and are very good at their stroke. I still concentrate quite a bit at maximizing the time spent in a "downhill" (shoulders lower than hips) and minimizing the "uphill." If the hips don't sink during the pull as you drive the hips forward, a swimmer can quickly get to downhill and not need to hold a glide very long because they hips are already up. If the hips do sink a little, the lungs being lower than the hips and body position on the "center of buoyancy" and not "center of gravity," then the hips should float towards the top with the assistance of the oxygen in the lungs. If a bad body position is held the lungs will rise and the hips will just sink lower.

The hips: So, those great breaststrokers who don't have great body position, they are able to do this because they have such power in their arms and core that as they go to "uphill" they probably actually rise their hips above the water  by their own strength. The hips then drop to the surface, but never sink to low, thus making it that they don't need a great "downhill" position. It may actually be a waste of time to spend the time to get to "downhill" for a sprint if you are able to push your body and hips out of the water, but that takes a lot of strength. (looking at our top breaststrokers bodies though, this does not surprise me that they are capable of this.) Hips are the key. The hips stay on the surface and always moving forward. That is the key to breaststroke.

Since most of my swimmers are young and are incapable of lifting their bodies and hips out of the water; I concentrate on the "downhill" position, and also direct the on-coming water to go above the body rather than below, as we don't need a down force to help our hips drop (it is hard enough to get them rise without a down force created by fast moving water under the body.)