Now I will stir the pot, everyone should have the latest Swim magazine, with the great woman breaststroker from San Diego. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, well several photos are showing her doing the breathing and pull wrong, again in my opinion. She is coming up way high and the head and eyes are looking down the pool. I call that swimming like a woman, or Amanda Beards old style. Even Brandon mentions he tries to get her to look down.
More and more women now swim breaststroke like the men, head down at all times and not coming up very high. Remember for every inch the head comes up the hips will sink two inches. I went to a development meet in November, the young hot shots. Only one girl in the entire group swam with a high head position.
Any comments?
This will be a real interesting year for swimmming. There will be a lot of world records broken in trials and the Olympics. In my opinion all the mens breaststroke records are soft. It may take a 58 and 2:07+ to win the mens gold. The women have developed the speed they need this last year. A 1:04 and 2:20+ is possible.
Any comments?
Great post by Wayne.I totally agree about stroke mechanics. I have REALLY been focusing on keeping my head down for the past year. THE result has been my best times in nearly 10 years and a new enthusiasm in training. I have been playing with the shortened underwater pull for some time now. It feels faster but the stop watch doesn't agree, yet, so I haven't used it in major meets. One major part of the "wave" breaststroke that Wayne hasn't emphasized in this thread is recovering the legs by bending at the knees only,with the hips straight until just before the catch when they do bend some to increase power. Doing this really decreases drag.
One question,how does Amanda Beard go so fast with her stroke?
( Wayne,if you can go 12.3 for a 50 I'm glad you don't have time to train. That time is scary. However, I do love to swim with you & hope you can find time to work out.)
Great post by Wayne.I totally agree about stroke mechanics. I have REALLY been focusing on keeping my head down for the past year. THE result has been my best times in nearly 10 years and a new enthusiasm in training. I have been playing with the shortened underwater pull for some time now. It feels faster but the stop watch doesn't agree, yet, so I haven't used it in major meets. One major part of the "wave" breaststroke that Wayne hasn't emphasized in this thread is recovering the legs by bending at the knees only,with the hips straight until just before the catch when they do bend some to increase power. Doing this really decreases drag.
One question,how does Amanda Beard go so fast with her stroke?
( Wayne,if you can go 12.3 for a 50 I'm glad you don't have time to train. That time is scary. However, I do love to swim with you & hope you can find time to work out.)
