The Mystery of the Breaststroke Armpull

A friendly difference of opinion arose this week between Ande and Allen, two USMS greats, about the best technique for the breaststroke armpull. The exchange occurred deep into an otherwise unrelated thread, so I thought a new thread might give the subject wider attention. Here follows an amateur's take on the two techniques for breaststroke armpull; hopefully the experts will then finetune the issue. One technique involves a shallower, wider, more circular motion of the arms, "like wiping the inside of two big bowls," as Paul Bergen is quoted in Whitten's Complete Book of Swimming. Whitten also describes the motion as a "heart-shape pattern," which involves a sculling outsweep, catch, insweep and recovery. This technique is considered quick, smooth, and easy to accelerate through in the insweep-to-recovery phase, as the path is fairly circular, continuous and shallow. The other technique attempts a straighter pull, using an early vertical forearm, with some similarities to the butterfly armpull. The outsweep is less pronounced, or as Jim Montgomery writes in Mastering Swimming, the "sweep-out is more of a slow and deliberate stretch than a deliberate movement." Then, as Cecil Colwin describes in Breakthrough Swimming, "the hands are planed directly backward." The advantages to this technique are presumed to be the superior propulsion offered by a straighter armpull, made deeper by a vertical forearm. The disadvantages could be that the arms and hands have to turn a sharper corner to begin recovery, and from a deeper level, which might create a resistance hitch. The two techniques share a high elbow position; the shallower heart-shape pull has been around longer than the deeper straight pull. Elite swimmers use both techniques with success, and many use what appears to be a hybrid of the two techniques. One explanation for a swimmer's preference for one technique over another may be stroke count. A breaststroker who uses a higher stroke count generally, or is primarily a sprinter, may prefer the quicker heart-shape pull. One who uses a lower stroke count, or swims longer events, may prefer the presumably more propulsive straight pull. The increasing popularity of the straight pull may be a reflection of the fact that stroke counts as a long-term trend are dropping across most strokes and events. For example, Grant Hackett set his 1500 freestyle record ten years ago using (on average) 17 stroke cycles per length. Sun Yang almost beat it recently using an average of 14-1/2 stroke cycles per length. Rebecca Soni has evolved over the years from a heart-shape breaststroke armpull to something straighter, while her stroke counts have decreased.