Breaststroke Pull

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!

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!