Breaststroke has always been my favourite stroke, but I've had these questions/problems for the longest times, could someone answer them for me? By the way, I'm 15.
1) How in the WORLD is it possible to do that ankle snap thing? I've been trying to turn my ankle out and in but it just wouldn't budge. It's just stuck there, and it cannot move side to side. I've seen some pictures of breaststrokers' feet turning 90 degrees in, but how can I do that? What are some exercises to improve side-to-side ankle flexibility?
2) I have a pretty narrow kick, and I think it is decent. However, I never feel the "explosion" everyone's talking about. I try my hardest to kick hardest, accelerating, but my legs just feel like pasta at the end of each kick. I can get pretty far with my kicks, but I feel like I can do better - I sometimes don't feel a lot of water resistance against my feet.
3) I've been having a bit of trouble with slipping recently. When I'm doing a 50 or 100m *** at a faster pace, my hands will sometimes fail to grab water, and sometimes a foot, sometimes both feet! I think it has to do with my pulling too fast, but I dunno.
4) When I go into a wall during ***, I am usually not tired, not even in a sprint (Short Course). However, the minute I complete my turn and start my underwater pull out, all hell breaks lose. I feel like my lungs will explode, and right after my first breath every single muscle begins hurting like never before. All fatigue comes at this one turn, and worsens every turn, until the last turn my underwater pullout is much shorter than my first pullout (from pushoff, I can usually do 10 meters from the pushoff while still maintaining a decent speed).
5) What are some workouts I can do to improve my sprint 50m and 100m breaststroke (short course)? I think I can do a near 40s 41s for 50m short course breaststroke from pushoff, but I want to get close to and under 35s.
6) What are some dry-land exercises I can do to improve my breaststroke?
7) Any other advice for faster sprint breaststroke?
Thanks A BUNCH to everyone who replies. I am really frustrated right now. Thanks again.
Parents
Former Member
Distance off the pullout is largely how streamlined you are. Just pulling the arms over the head instead of next to the ears can mean as much as two meters distance.
As much as standard egg beaters are fairly good for breaststrokers, and the 10 pound weight OK, it really ignors what is needed in training. Breaststrokers do not really exaust the propulsive muscles in the legs. Ususally the explosion and snap are still there even in a 200 race.
What slows down most are the relatively untrained muscles that pull the legs quickly up to the butt. This slows down the kick cycle and the stroke cycle.
You (and all breaststrokers) need to train these muscles, I created a egg beater type of drill where you go forwards using the egg beater, either on the front or back. The key is all out kick speed for as much as 50 meters. Most breaststrokers will be exausted after 25 meters.
Regular egg beater is slow, keeping you above water etc. This egg beater is all out, quick, quick fast explosive feet, as fast as you can go through the water.
Swimmers who I have coached usually loose one second in their 50, as much as 3 seconds in their 100 and 5 seconds in their 200 breaststroke events, in the span of about 3 months. This would be doing 3 to 4 all out egg beaters in EVERY workout.
I have more information on this and other things you might be interested in at www.breaststroke.info
Distance off the pullout is largely how streamlined you are. Just pulling the arms over the head instead of next to the ears can mean as much as two meters distance.
As much as standard egg beaters are fairly good for breaststrokers, and the 10 pound weight OK, it really ignors what is needed in training. Breaststrokers do not really exaust the propulsive muscles in the legs. Ususally the explosion and snap are still there even in a 200 race.
What slows down most are the relatively untrained muscles that pull the legs quickly up to the butt. This slows down the kick cycle and the stroke cycle.
You (and all breaststrokers) need to train these muscles, I created a egg beater type of drill where you go forwards using the egg beater, either on the front or back. The key is all out kick speed for as much as 50 meters. Most breaststrokers will be exausted after 25 meters.
Regular egg beater is slow, keeping you above water etc. This egg beater is all out, quick, quick fast explosive feet, as fast as you can go through the water.
Swimmers who I have coached usually loose one second in their 50, as much as 3 seconds in their 100 and 5 seconds in their 200 breaststroke events, in the span of about 3 months. This would be doing 3 to 4 all out egg beaters in EVERY workout.
I have more information on this and other things you might be interested in at www.breaststroke.info
