Breaststroke Pull

This question can't be answered with complete accuracy without answering the,as yet unanswered question,"is force in breaststroke pull primarily lift dominant or drag dominant." If lift dominant the pull is a curving outsweep leading to a curving insweep with the hands pitched out on the outsweep and in on the insweep. If primarily drag dominated the pull should be more catch on the outsweep and then pull back with the palm of the hands pointing back. The Aussie women seem to be taught that the stroke is drag dominant while many men especially Kitajima use a more circular pattern. Experiment and see what works best for you. The trnsition from pull to recovery seems harder with the pull back stroke so I [personally favor the more circular(actually heart shaped)stroke.How wide to have your hands on the outsweep is a function of strength and speed. A rough idea is about the same as your fly pull.

You want your palms facing back while your arms are coming into your chest. That helps pull up your body to breath and pull you through the water. Then when they hit a straight line with your armpits (respectively) they come together to go back out. As for going out to wide, think of you want them to go wide enough that if you pulled straight back your arms would be at 90 degrees, they shouldn't go much wider than that. Making a pizza and cutting it in half....I still chant that to myself sometimes. ;) I hope that makes sense..... Good Luck!!

Yes that makes perfect sense. I don't think I would cut the pizza into half. I think mine would be somewhere between one third and a half. Probably about 135 degrees. Regarding the other question, I don't think my palms are directly facing backward (they are facing inward AND backward). So if palms facing each other is 90 degrees and facing direct back toward your toes is 0 degrees, my palms are about 45 degrees when they are coming toward my each other. Do you get your mometum from pulling yourself forward in the water, or coming out of water to lunge forward? The higher I come out of water, so more distance I get from the lunge that follows. For some reason, when I tried to pull myself forward through water, it simply made my body more vertical.

You want to try to cut the pizza in half. That means that your hands are exactly in the middle of your chest on the way back to straight and that will help drive you forward. You get momentum from both pulling yourself forward and lunging. When you drive forward that should be at the same time that you are bringing your legs back to straight, so that everything is in a streamline at the same time and that's when you glide. When you pull you always want to end in a position so that you can drive forward. So when you come up to breath, you should be leaning forward, looking down, ready to push forward. Look at some pictures of the elite...Beard, Hansen, etc. and you'll see that they are leaning forward.

Originally posted by Seagurl51 You want to try to cut the pizza in half. That means that your hands are exactly in the middle of your chest on the way back to straight and that will help drive you forward. Sorry I misunderstood you about the cutting pizza part. I thought you were talking about outsweep instead of recovery. :) For recovery, I go straight to the front starting with my palms almost together under my chin then rotate to flat as they reach to the front getting ready for the next outsweep. When you pull you always want to end in a position so that you can drive forward. So when you come up to breath, you should be leaning forward, looking down, ready to push forward. Look at some pictures of the elite...Beard, Hansen, etc. and you'll see that they are leaning forward. I actually think Hansen (assuming you are talking about Branden not Brook :) ) and Beard swim somewhat differently. Others can correct me if I am wrong. I think Beard swims more like Katijima, Tara Kirk, Jessica Hardy. They use the heart shaped arm movement, as Allen Clark pointed out. (Branden) Hansen swims more like Leisel Jones where they pull directly back. My story is that I started learning breastroke in June. I was taught to pull back and down at the same time then recover. I had a VERY difficult time coming up breathing without turning my body vertical. Also, my arms were too slow to get to the front, so my timing was off. Every time I swim breaststroke, I could almost see the giant tsunami wave that moved along with me in front of me! :D A couple of weeks ago, I got a video with Richard Quick and Tara Kirk. They showed this completely differently arm movement -- sweep out and sweep in, no pulling. I tried to do that and thought it was very unusual, thinking how is that gonna give you forward movement. But after practicing it for a while, some interesting things happened. It was easy to come up for air without lifting my head, my hands are recovered much faster, I was almost always streamlined when my kick started. Everything seemed much easier and faster. However, I had one problem: this arm movement didn't seem to give you much forward momentum WHILE YOU ARE IN THE WATER, unlike the pulling back type of arm movement which would literally pull you forward through the water. With this scull out and scull in movement, the forward momentum seems to be created mostly by COMING OUT OF WATER high, lean forward, then lunge. I didn't know if this is what it's supposed to be and wondered whether I should still try to focus on pulling back. From Allen's messasge If lift dominant the pull is a curving outsweep leading to a curving insweep with the hands pitched out on the outsweep and in on the insweep. , I guess this seems to be the case? In other word, if I am swimming the heart shaped arm movement, I should focus on lifting forward, not pulling forward? Is that a fair assessment? Thank you both for the advice you have given so far!

I am glad your stroke is feeling better. Drag propulsion means using your hands as paddles. Lift propulsion is,for practical purposes,sculling. You use your hands like propellers. It's called lift as the force is similar to what lifts an airplane wing. There is a heated debate as to which is more important in swimming. I suspect you are generating more force with your new pull than you think. Try just doing the pull and see. If you are doing the heart shaped pull remember to accelerate through the pull so that the insweep is the strongest part.

I've been swimming this stroke for sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo long that I've never truly thought too much about the mechanics of it. I'm not much into the physics of it. That doesn't mean I don't think about the technique. You always want the pull to be one continuous motion from outsweep to recovery. DO NOT stop the movement under your chest/when you lift to breathe. The drag coefficients are too great at that point. My point is: Do the stroke that feels the best for you. I could never swim like Liesel Jones. And Amanda Beard's stroke requires more flexibility than I have. I swim somewhere in between. But that's the way I like it. Swim it slow to find the feel for the water. Then when you've got the new technique down, build up to swimming it fast. It should feel the same.

Originally posted by Allen Stark I am glad your stroke is feeling better. Drag propulsion means using your hands as paddles. Lift propulsion is,for practical purposes,sculling. You use your hands like propellers. It's called lift as the force is similar to what lifts an airplane wing. There is a heated debate as to which is more important in swimming. I suspect you are generating more force with your new pull than you think. Try just doing the pull and see. If you are doing the heart shaped pull remember to accelerate through the pull so that the insweep is the strongest part. Thanks for putting this into the perspective of lift vs. propulsion. I didn't think of it that way, but now it makes more sense. Can you elaborate more on how this is similar to what lifts airplane wings. I am not sure how that works either. :confused: I sweep my hands out and sweep my hands in toward my chin or chest with my palms pointed half way toward each other and half way facing back (like a 45 degree angle). There is this natural force that's lifting. I don't have to do much else and my head and shoulder are out of water. How is that force generated? Is it because your palms are pushing water in and up during the insweep?

Yeah I know. I have a tendency to over-analyze things. :) Since I started this new pull, I usually start with a few laps of small sculling then one regular outsweep insweep lunge breathe, then use some small flutter kicks to get my back into the small sculling motion again. Then I will swim regular breastrokes. I am really excited about this new pull, as you can tell. I feel that the wider my outsweep is, the more powerful my insweep will be and the more i can lunge forward. I hope I am not going to jinks it by getting overly excited! :p

Regarding lift,Bernoulles Principle is that as a fluid flows faster it's pressure decreases. An air plane wing is curved on top so the air has to travel further in the same time on top relative to underneath. Since it is moving faster the pressure is lower so the wing rises. Moving a hand through the water at an angle can cause the water on the back of the hand to move faster than over the palm so the hand will lift. The actual situation for a swimmer is much more complicated. There is a good article on this in the current issue of "American Swimming Magazine"