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.
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Former Member
Nice. I must keep that in mind. I simply must try that ;).
Anyooo, no one has answered my question about the ankles turning out yet, so I'll change the question a bit. Please bear with me, as I believe that I am rather thick =(.
What are the ankle positions in the various phases of a breaststroke kick? Starting from when the ankles recover to the butt to when the soles slam together, what are their positions throughout the kick? Are they turned out in any part? Are they turned inwards like in dolphin kick at any part (I saw the underwater videos of some elite breaststrokers and for some reasons they aren't bothering to make their soles slam together. Rather, they're just making the toes point in and that's the end of the kick). So please respond to this quesiton.
Also, could someone please rate my time (41.04s for 50m, 15 years old)? I'm trying to see where I stand as a breaststroker (obviously not a superb one), and I can work harder from there.
Nice. I must keep that in mind. I simply must try that ;).
Anyooo, no one has answered my question about the ankles turning out yet, so I'll change the question a bit. Please bear with me, as I believe that I am rather thick =(.
What are the ankle positions in the various phases of a breaststroke kick? Starting from when the ankles recover to the butt to when the soles slam together, what are their positions throughout the kick? Are they turned out in any part? Are they turned inwards like in dolphin kick at any part (I saw the underwater videos of some elite breaststrokers and for some reasons they aren't bothering to make their soles slam together. Rather, they're just making the toes point in and that's the end of the kick). So please respond to this quesiton.
Also, could someone please rate my time (41.04s for 50m, 15 years old)? I'm trying to see where I stand as a breaststroker (obviously not a superb one), and I can work harder from there.
