Just curious of what type of breaststroke most people here swim? Which one of these three : conventional (flat), wave, or undulating (i.e. the very flexible Amanda Beard) you guys found most efficient and comfortable to swim?
I found myself swim a combination of wave and undulating. Just wonder what you all think of these different types of breaststroke. :agree:
Can you post some films representing each style? I guess I am doing ondulating one. In the recovery, my hip slightly breaks the surface, my head completely in the water. Breathing, I do not raise my head much.
Sigh. Another breaststroke thread hijacked by non-breaststrokers.
I'm a wave breaststroker, by the way, which I started in 1996 after 19 years of flast breaststroke.
I call it totaly and utter avoidance ... it has worked well so far ...
Totally agree with FlyQueen here. Granted, I will teach someone breastroke but forget it when it comes to racing this stroke.
A 50 breastroke hurts worse than a 200 fly for me...yea, you ride that correctly.
I don't know, but I'd have to say I'm "wave." Only because when I breaststroke, I create such big waves anyone in my lane gets bounced around and the other lanes get water face slaps of the water coming off the wall.
My coach says I'm "all about the pull.":dunno:
I don't know what that means.
Flat. Old School.
Jeff, how hard was the transition. I asked my coach when I started Masters the first time 4 years ago and she told me not to switch. I am not back up to racing speed so to me it is a perfect time to spend time on stroke drills to switch over.
Gor Boost
My ideal breaststroke type is 6' 4" tall about 200 pounds, brown hair... oh sorry. That's not what you meant, huh?
Seriously though I wish I had never tried to switch. I went from flat (doing 1:09s/100) to trying to do the wave. Now my stroke is an ugly, slow, discombobulated combination of the two, and I'm lucky if I can go 1:15! I just want my old stroke back :( When I did do it right, sniff sniff, it was all about the legs for me. Sigh, the good old days. What is the saying? The older I get, the faster I was :thhbbb:
Backstroke is nice!
Ed Moses definitely didn't swim flat. I have a wave style, albeit a very crappy up and down wave style ... In theory I should be undulating more being that I am a younger, flexible, strong female, but that doesn't seem to happen for me ...
I have no excuse either other than my body and mind do not agree on what to do on breaststroke ... no kick and a crappy pull ... :frustrated: :frustrated:
Question though for Jeff/Allen/Wayne/other breaststroke experts ... what muscles/body parts need to be flexible to swim ala Amanda Beard or Jessica Hardy? Mostly hips/back? Knees? Shoulders? Everything?
Maybe I'll try some tonight ... :dunno:
I started swimming flat breaststroke and with the rule change in 1986 I started adding aspects of wave. My stroke has been pretty pure wave since 2003,but I'm still tweaking it. I think that the up and down motion has gotten too much emphasis(see "breaststroke.info" for Waynes view of wave,which I agree with.) I think there are 3 key points to the wave.
1) keep your head down at all times(Joseph Nagy,the man who populaized wave had been known to bop swimmers on the top of their head if they raised their head to breathe.)
2)recover your feet by bending your knees only
3)accelerate your hands through out the pull and shoot your hands forward on the recovery.
If you don't lift your head to breath you must lift your torso. This combined with your legs going down as you lift your feet means that as you shoot your arms forward and kick hard you naturally lunge,Voila' wave breaststroke.
I think wave breaststroke is better for kick dominant swimmers as it makes it easier to "ride the glide." I disagree with Jeff with great temerity,but by my definition Leisel swims wave,granted a very flat wave.I can't think of any World Class breaststrokers since 1992 who swam flat(I'm sure Skip will remind me if there was someone.)
