After the I.M. thread and watching my daughter at her meet I got to wondering if being good at certain strokes has anything to do with heredity. If you read the I.M. thread you know that I am terrible at the breaststroke. Today my daughter had to do the 100 I.M. She was second after the fly and doing the backstroke. She had at least a 1/4 of a pool length on the two swimmers behind her. All the parents around me were commenting on how good she looked. I told them to wait and see what happens on the breaststroke. What do you know the two swimmers behind her caught her and past her on the breaststroke. She dropped down to fourth place. Is she destined to be a terrible breaststroker like me? Keep in mind that she has always done lessons at the Y and not with me.
Former Member
I said well past the flags. My head probably comes out 10 yards from the wall, usually. If I try for distance I can easily go past midway of a 25 yard pool. If I glide to a stop, and don't do the pulldown, I am past midway, also.
As Wayne described the stroke, the breath occurs after the start of the first stroke, not before the start of the stroke, and not on the second. That is the usual way. Not breathing until the second stroke is non-typical even amoung olympic swimmers, but I imagine it could be effective. You have to be sure your head breaks the surface before the end of the first pull, however.
Originally posted by Phil Arcuni
In order to not be disruptive to my lane, I often do a butterfly kick during breaststroke -- that way I can keep up. Oddly enough, good breaststrokers don't understand how I can go faster with the butterfly kick, and I can't understand how it could be any other way.
I can understand it. There are two main differences between the breaststroke kick and the butterfly kick:
1) The breaststroke kick has a recovery; the butterfly kick doesn't. In butterfly, your legs just go up and down. In breaststroke, you have to bring your feet forward, against the flow of the water moving past you. If you don't do this recovery properly, it can bring you to a grinding halt.
2) The main propulsive part of the breaststroke kick is what I like to call the "paddle kick", in which you use the sides of your ankles as paddles. If you can do this properly, it can be very powerful because your "paddles" have a lot of surface area. But to do it properly, you have to be able to point your toes literally in opposite directions (i.e., toward the side walls). Because of this, people who can easily point their toes in opposite directions have a decided advantage in breaststroke. Personally, I can't. If I stand with my heels together and spread my toes as far apart as possible, I have to really strain to get them past 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock, and can't get them anywhere near 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock. As a result, when I do the paddle kick, it's like trying to paddle a boat with the paddle turned at an angle.
I think my pulldowns are pretty good. I come out well past the flags, and when swimming breaststroke in practice I am usually ahead 1/3 of the way from the first push off. It does not last.
Well, that brings up another important difference between butterfly and breaststroke: In butterfly, you recover your arms over the water; in breaststroke, you have to recover them under the water. Again, part of your body is moving contrary to the flow of the water moving past you. Because of this, you can do a great pulldown and then lose all of your momentum when you recover your arms forward. And the same thing can happen with your arm stroke.
Wings and beer, I will catch a flight now.
It is the little things that make for good breaststroke.
Like how you hold your streamline, how you place your hands during the streamline, where your arms are in relation to your ears.
The modern streamline is worth at least one yard, for free each and every length.
The arms are behind the ears, back behind the head. The hands are NOT side by side and are not one on top of the other. Something simple like locking the thump of the top hand over the other hand can be worth several feet distance:D
How deep you push off can make a huge difference, if there is any ripple at the surface, you are loosing several potential feet of distance. The bigger you are the deaper you have to go.
Originally posted by breastroker
Shameless plug, look at my articles at www.breaststroke.info.
Practice same.
Practice more
Race
Smile:D
Maybe I'll practice until I can beat you!:cool:
....Well, that brings up another important difference between butterfly and breaststroke: In butterfly, you recover your arms over the water; in breaststroke, you have to recover them under the water. Again, part of your body is moving contrary to the flow of the water moving past you. Because of this, you can do a great pulldown and then lose all of your momentum when you recover your arms forward. And the same thing can happen with your arm stroke.
That kills me too. I feel like I have a decent pull down. I come off a wall and pass freestylers in the lane next to me when we were even at the wall. Then, I recover my hands to start my first stroke and its like slamming on the brakes.:( :mad:
OK Wayne, this morning I really, really focused on my pushoff/pulldown. I streamlined with my arms behind my ears, hand over hand, thumb wrapped around the other hand, etc.
And guess what - it worked.:)
I was easily going two yards further than I was earlier this week. I still need to make the transition to the stroke smoother, but the first time I came up I couldn't believe how much further I was.:eek:
I also think I can go further - I need to work on the lung capacity. I also just started some weight training a couple of times a week and I think the leg press will make my push off stronger. And if I could drop a few more pounds:rolleyes:, I would lose this gut that hangs down in a not so streamlined fashion. I was at 10+ yards today and I think with practice I can get another yard or two!:D
Now for a question. When I'm in the stroke itself, and I recover/extend my arms and kick, should I be getting into the same streamline? I am guessing yes, but that's a lot tougher than doing it off the wall. I will definately need to work on that.:rolleyes:
I really hate breaststroke now. I used to have a decent 50 (31.8 good start!); 100 (1:09); and 200 (2:29) and now I can barely break 2:40. Granted, my body has changed with 3 kids in the last 5 years but COME ON! My stroke is pathetic.
Coaches offer advice, I do it, then something else comes up. I had Roque (Santos) try and teach me the wave stroke and that made everything worse. During any given race you will see any one of 10 variations of the WRONG stroke. It's so frustrating!!!
Lately, I've been working on snapping my kick (my kick WAS really strong-I would've contended for me more than 65% of my stroke) and doing a quick recovery into the next stroke. And on my pushoffs, video shows, I go down towards the bottom off the wall. That was a relatively easy fix today as Mike (Heaney) said to just lift my chin a little bit- that worked :)
I definitely took my breaststroke for granted, and now that I don't have it I really miss it :p (sniff sniff) I now have hope that one day it will come back as I get glimmers here and there. I can't wait for that day!
part of it is heredity
some people are just naturally better at particular strokes than than others
but a huge part of breastroke is technique and timing,
another part comes from hard breastroke training.
I'm sure if your daughter
improved her breastroke technique and
trained more breastroke
her times and ability would improve.
Maybe remarkably.
If she wants to be an good IMer
I'm sure if you had a breastroke expert observe her, he could tell your daughter what she needed to correct to swim breastroke right.
If she really wants to improve, she might benefit from watching videos of great breastrokers.
Read Waynes articles, he's broken breastroke down to a science.
http://www.breaststroke.info/
This past season I concentrated on improving my breastroke and made some great strides. I figured I could make bigger improvements in my 200 IM concentrating on my weakness (breastroke) rather than on my strengths (fly, back and free)
Good luck,
Ande
Originally posted by SWinkleblech
After the I.M. thread and watching my daughter at her meet I got to wondering if being good at certain strokes has anything to do with heredity. If you read the I.M. thread you know that I am terrible at the breaststroke. Today my daughter had to do the 100 I.M. She was second after the fly and doing the backstroke. She had at least a 1/4 of a pool length on the two swimmers behind her. All the parents around me were commenting on how good she looked. I told them to wait and see what happens on the breaststroke. What do you know the two swimmers behind her caught her and past her on the breaststroke. She dropped down to fourth place. Is she destined to be a terrible breaststroker like me? Keep in mind that she has always done lessons at the Y and not with me.
