I've read in a few web sites that you burn less calories swimming freestyle than using a breaststroke, is this true ? why ?
Can anyone expand on this concept ?
-Rc
Parents
Former Member
Heartrate is likely pretty well correlated with level of effort and work done, but it doesn't offer any predictive power in this context, it's more of a measurement than a cause.
It is well established that breaststroke is the least efficient of the competitive strokes and therefore takes more energy to swim the same distance at the same speed or alternately and more frequently results in lower speed for the same energy expended. In addition to being less streamlined and accellerating and decellerating more and the underwater recovery, you expend a lot of energy pushing water in directions perpendicular to the direction of travel.
Heartrate is likely pretty well correlated with level of effort and work done, but it doesn't offer any predictive power in this context, it's more of a measurement than a cause.
It is well established that breaststroke is the least efficient of the competitive strokes and therefore takes more energy to swim the same distance at the same speed or alternately and more frequently results in lower speed for the same energy expended. In addition to being less streamlined and accellerating and decellerating more and the underwater recovery, you expend a lot of energy pushing water in directions perpendicular to the direction of travel.
