*** Sprint Workout Ideas?

It's really hard to give specific recommendations without having seen you swim, but here are a few things to think about: 1) In breaststroke, as with every other stroke, minimizing drag is at least as important as maximizing propulsion. Some ways to do this are: (a) Think about your streamline as being the anchor position for both your armstroke and your kick. People often find that it helps, as a drill, to actually pause in their streamline at the end of each stroke/kick cycle so that they can make sure they are really returning to their streamline. Once you are doing this consistently, gradually cut out the pause in your streamline. (b) The best armstroke in the world isn't going to help you if you lose all your momentum during the recovery. As soon as your arms have finished the propulsive part of their stroke, they become a liability, so you want to sweep them in and snap them forward as quickly as possible. People often find that it helps to deemphasize the propulsive part of their armstroke for awhile and to focus entirely on the recovery. As your hands recover forward, hunch your shoulders a little and focus on keeping your elbows close together, making your arms slide forward in the water like a needle poking into a piece of cloth. As your arms are approaching full extension, drive your face forward into the water so that you finish with your arms in a streamline. (c) Remember that there are three parts to the kick: the thrust, the squeeze, and the recovery. During the thrust, you point your toes as far outward as possible and use the insides of your ankles as paddles to anchor your position in the water as your arms are snapping forward into a streamline. During the squeeze, you bring your legs forcefully together, squeezing the water out from between them, and simultaneously point your toes in line with your legs, finishing with your legs in a streamline. The squeeze phase is the part of the kick where swimmers typically feel their body really soaring. One of the commoner errors people make is to rush their kick and miss all or part of the squeeze phase. During the recovery, you recock the gun, so to speak, bringing your feet forward until your heels are against your butt (this should happen as you are pulsing up to breathe, so that this upward pulsing will keep your feet underwater). Make sure that your knees stay close together and try to recover your ankles in the shadow of your bodyline to minimize drag. 2) Make sure your timing is right. In order for your stroke to have maximum effectiveness, your armstroke, the upward pulsing of your body to breathe, and the different phases of your kick all need to be properly synchronized. Your shoulders should be pulsing up and your feet should be finishing their recovery as you are doing the insweep of your arms prior to recovering them forward. You should be in the midst of the thrust phase of your kick as your arms are recovering forward and your head is driving forward into the water. When your arms have reached streamline, you should be in the squeeze phase of your kick, bringing your legs into streamline as well. A drill you may find useful is to watch the markings on the bottom of the pool as you swim and watch for points at which you see your body slow down or stop relative to those markings. Those points are dead spots in your stroke, and cost you momentum which you must then build up again. So try to adjust your stroke timing to eliminate those dead spots. While I've suggested drills to help with some of these points, you can work on nearly all of them while doing whole stroke breaststroke during a practice just by making a point of choosing one particular thing to focus on during each lap or set of laps. By varying your focal point, you can gradually perfect each of the different aspects of your breaststroke. Bob

It's really hard to give specific recommendations without having seen you swim, but here are a few things to think about: 1) In breaststroke, as with every other stroke, minimizing drag is at least as important as maximizing propulsion. Some ways to do this are: (a) Think about your streamline as being the anchor position for both your armstroke and your kick. People often find that it helps, as a drill, to actually pause in their streamline at the end of each stroke/kick cycle so that they can make sure they are really returning to their streamline. Once you are doing this consistently, gradually cut out the pause in your streamline. (b) The best armstroke in the world isn't going to help you if you lose all your momentum during the recovery. As soon as your arms have finished the propulsive part of their stroke, they become a liability, so you want to sweep them in and snap them forward as quickly as possible. People often find that it helps to deemphasize the propulsive part of their armstroke for awhile and to focus entirely on the recovery. As your hands recover forward, hunch your shoulders a little and focus on keeping your elbows close together, making your arms slide forward in the water like a needle poking into a piece of cloth. As your arms are approaching full extension, drive your face forward into the water so that you finish with your arms in a streamline. (c) Remember that there are three parts to the kick: the thrust, the squeeze, and the recovery. During the thrust, you point your toes as far outward as possible and use the insides of your ankles as paddles to anchor your position in the water as your arms are snapping forward into a streamline. During the squeeze, you bring your legs forcefully together, squeezing the water out from between them, and simultaneously point your toes in line with your legs, finishing with your legs in a streamline. The squeeze phase is the part of the kick where swimmers typically feel their body really soaring. One of the commoner errors people make is to rush their kick and miss all or part of the squeeze phase. During the recovery, you recock the gun, so to speak, bringing your feet forward until your heels are against your butt (this should happen as you are pulsing up to breathe, so that this upward pulsing will keep your feet underwater). Make sure that your knees stay close together and try to recover your ankles in the shadow of your bodyline to minimize drag. 2) Make sure your timing is right. In order for your stroke to have maximum effectiveness, your armstroke, the upward pulsing of your body to breathe, and the different phases of your kick all need to be properly synchronized. Your shoulders should be pulsing up and your feet should be finishing their recovery as you are doing the insweep of your arms prior to recovering them forward. You should be in the midst of the thrust phase of your kick as your arms are recovering forward and your head is driving forward into the water. When your arms have reached streamline, you should be in the squeeze phase of your kick, bringing your legs into streamline as well. A drill you may find useful is to watch the markings on the bottom of the pool as you swim and watch for points at which you see your body slow down or stop relative to those markings. Those points are dead spots in your stroke, and cost you momentum which you must then build up again. So try to adjust your stroke timing to eliminate those dead spots. While I've suggested drills to help with some of these points, you can work on nearly all of them while doing whole stroke breaststroke during a practice just by making a point of choosing one particular thing to focus on during each lap or set of laps. By varying your focal point, you can gradually perfect each of the different aspects of your breaststroke. Bob