I am attempting to perfect my start and turns for the breaststroke. I recently reviewed three articles on the breaststroke turn which I found on the USMS web site. All had different recommendations for the turn pullout. The article by Budd Termin and David Pendergast recommended holding for 1 second after pushing off the wall before beginning the pullout. Another by Wayne McCauley recommended 3 seconds. Another by John Moffet just says "as you begin to slow down, start your pullout." I know there has to be an optimum time and it may be somewhat swimmer dependent, but the difference I see between these three authors is huge. Can anyone help me understand this dilemma. Ray
Shrugging the shoulders on the pulldown really increases streamlining and is essential. Keeping your head low on the breakout is important,but requires practice and discipline to do on the last turn of the 200 when your body is screaming BREATHE.
Not to mention Lunk's method assumes there's going to be someone right next to you going close to the same speed. Not always the case in masters swimming. I'm surprised it worked for him. There had to be plenty of dual meets where he blew everyone else's doors off.
Correct, so just turning and starting your stroke should not get you DQ'd, which is why I asked how official would DQ a person as Wayne said. He said the rules in a round about way say you have to do the pull down.
They wont DQ you. At zones I stopped at the wall on turn 6 of my 200 thinking it was done...then turned and began swimming like fury without pushing off underwater. No DQ...just great comedy for the 6 people who had been rooting me on up and down that lane. LOL
Wayne or Allen (or anyone), have you ever tried to do a 50 without a pullout and compared the time? I have gone to a faster pullout for my 50 and had good results the last meet, but I can't imagine coming right up, especially on the start. And I don't even do the dolphin kick that's allowed. I would think that you would have to do an awfully shallow dive to make it work. Maybe the turn would be OK. When I see breaststrokers pop up without a pullout, it always seems slower.
My observations of watching the kids is the pullout is faster. However, the only ones not doing it are usually the less skilled swimmers. It would be nice to see some of our elite breaststrokes race, one doing pullout, the other not. We have a couple of 13 year old girls who both swim 1:10, so are evenly matched. That would be a good experiment.
The beginning of a pullout starts when decelearation begins.
The scientist in me is compelled to point out you start decelerating the moment your toes leave the wall.
OK, true. You decelerate as soon as you leave the blocks, too. However since water is ~1,000 times denser than air your deceleration through the air can be considered negligible. :)
To continue nitpicking, as soon as you leave the blocks, you decelerate in the horizontal (x) axis , and accelerate due to gravity in the vertical axis, which is pretty meaningless in the context of a breaststroke pull out. ;)
To continue nitpicking, as soon as you leave the blocks, you decelerate in the horizontal (x) axis , and accelerate due to gravity in the vertical axis, which is pretty meaningless in the context of a breaststroke pull out. ;)
Right, and since I define the z axis as vertically up, the acceleration due to gravity is also really a deceleration in the z direction!
The scientist in me is compelled to point out you start decelerating the moment your toes leave the wall.
The wiseass nit-picker in me is compelled to point out that my toes sometimes leave the block too and not just the wall.
:rofl:
