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.
Former Member
Thanks 2 everyone who replied.
I had my first swim meet today, and had a pathetic 41.04 (got 14th out of 50th) for 50m SC breaststroke. The winner of the 50 *** was 33.86!!
First of all, I saw in the underwater videos of breaststrokers that when they do the breaststroke kick their toes point near to 90 degrees outwards. Is that necessary for a strong kick?
What is required for a breaststroker to go faster? Strength? Technique? Can anyone give me any tips, big or small, on how to get under 35s for 50 *** or just generally go faster in ***?
Where's the *** specialist, Wayne? I expected him to post in this thread.
What is required for a breaststroker to go faster?
At the risk of being accused of plagerism,
If you
- get stronger
- improve your technique
- increase your flexibility, and
- get a good coach to look at you swimming and tell you what you need to work on and then work on it,
you will get faster at breaststroke.
Wayne has created a whole web site of ways to improve your breaststroke, it is probably difficult for him to give you advice that he hasn't already written there, especially without ever having seen you swim. He has posted to this effect when asked similar questions in the past. There are also several books and videos on the topic. If there was a solution that could be conveyed in a few paragraphs on a message board I'm sure someone would have posted it by now.
What has your coach told you to work on?
Thanks. What about my other question, about the toes turning out? I'm still very unclear on the kick and the ankle positions to grab most water. Can someone please break it down for me? For me now the toes point most downwards throughout the entire kick, and I know that's not right.
Also, my time. 41.04, is that a mediocre time, a novice time, or a slightly above average time for my age? Is there a lot of room to improve? I'm planning an all out work-to-death year next year to try to bring my 50 *** time down to less than 33s and close to 32 or 31s. Is that possible in a year?
One more question: how can I improve my underwater pullout? The winner of this year's meet, he pulled at least 10m off the turn in a 50m SC event! He came into the turn a body length ahead and came out 2 body lengths ahead. It was absolute dominance by him (33.86s). So what does it take to get a good underwater pullout besides practice practice and practice? Any drills, workouts or tips for the underwater pullout?
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
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.
Draconis,
That is the reason they say breaststrokers are born and not made.
I can easily snap my feet together and clap the soles together. Most great breaststrokers have EXTREME ankle and foot flexion.
Normal eggbeater will have some muscle pain. My forwards all out eggbeater will have the lungs BURSTING after 25 yards! Remember it is ALL OUT speed.
Thanks Wayne for the link. It was superb.
But NO WAY! That person's feet look like they're barely attached to his ankles. I mean, your ankles aren't even meant to turn that far, but that was simply scary, when he clapped the soles of feet together during the drill. How in the WORLD can I increase my ankle flexibility to that extent? Any dryland exercises I can do Wayne?
Also, after 100m of eggbeater the part of my leg that's hurting is the muscle to the side of my calf. Is that right? Other muscles hurt a bit too, like the muscle at the bottom of my thigh, but the muscles I can feel that's hurting most are the muscles on the side of my lower leg. Is that where it's supposed to hurt most?
1) Should I do forward or backward eggbeater?
2) Also, are the muscles that are hurting (described in the above post) the RIGHT muscles to be hurting? Or should some other muscles hurt and those muscles not hurt at all?
3) Can any dryland exercises help my ankles to make my soles clap together? Or is it impossible and one has to be born with that kind of ankles? If it is the former, what are some dryland exercises that can help me clap my soles together?
