Breaststroke Technique Question--What to do with the Hands

Keith, Your question is very good. Based on the usms rules-your ELBOW MUST STAY UNDERWATER even during the recovery phase. see 101.2.2 Swimmers have gotten DQ'ed for their arms recovering above the water. To do the wave breastroke, a lot has to do with timing of your kick and tempo. Alternate fly and *** kick with your arm pull is a good drill. Remember your arms and legs work together. Since breastroke is a barge stroke, you want to decrease as much drag as you can. Drills-Drills-Drills will help you get your feel and timing back To do Amanda's breastroke you need strong legs, most common mistake is that people lift upward not forward, they just pop up and there is no forward motion. Which is a wasted effort Amanda also has a wide pull versus Tara. To do Tara's breastroke, you need tempo in your stroke she has a narrow pull. To determine which stroke fits you would depend on how efficient is your kick, how propulsive is your kick, how strong is your pull is. Work with your timing first, and play with the size of your pull with your kick. For your kick, remember heels to hiney. People have a tendency to let their knees lead. Good Luck and welcome back to swimming...

Anna,yes.I read about this drill and it seemed impossible,but it just takes a little practice.If you have any dead spots in your stroke the paddles will fall off. I like to think of breaststroke as not having an arm recovery,but rather that the arm extension/lunge forward is an extension of the insweep.

A good drill is to swim breaststroke with paddles without using the loops so that only the pressure of the water holds them in place. I hadn't heard of this drill before. I will try it. If I'm doing the stroke correctly, will the paddles stay in place even during the recovery? It's hard for me to picture that. :drown: Anna Lea

The important thing is to lunge into streamline ASAP.Fort,are you accelerating your hands through out the pull.Many people accelerate the outsweep and slow at the insweep which will cause them to lose the water. A good drill is to swim breaststroke with paddles without using the loops so that only the pressure of the water holds them in place. Unfortunately, I think I might be doing what you suggest, Allen. I'm also not lunging into the streamline that well due to a poor kick. Having read Nadine's comments, I think I need a narrower pull. I was experimenting with that yesterday and it seemed to help my forward momentum. The Amanda style is definitely not for me.

Hard to argue with the world record holder, but it seems to me like skimming the water would create resistance... Why not keep them just below the surface? What am I missing? Water creates much more resistance than air. Recovering your hands over the water will slow you down much less than recovering them underwater. The fact at least part of the arm must remain underwater at all times during breaststroke is the primary reason it is the slowest competitive swimming stroke.

Here I am, chiming in. You are allowed to recover your hands over the water on breaststroke, but as you might have seen and heard, all sorts of great swimmers recover in varying degrees. Because there is no absolute way to efficiently recover your arms on breaststroke (as opposed to backstroke or freestyle), work to find what suits you best. I recover my hands underwater, with a very slight skimming of the surface, for the reason you mentioned, Midas: why recover so far above the water if they're just going right back in? But to do the wave breaststroke properly, you must have some type of arc in the recovery to facilitate the body moving in that same motion. Start by doing a lot of breaststroke pulling, either with fins or without them. In either case, do a slight dolphin kick and work on a fast arm recovery. Give your body a few weeks -- four to five of constant work -- to find what suits your body type best. As I say many times, it's great to watch the best in the world swim perfectly. But it's best to find what works best for you.

It depends on how high you come up when you breath.You want to shoot your hands forward right below your head. If you come way up like Amanda Beard your hands will be out of the water. Hansen is lower and his hands skim the surface. Liesel Jones is much lower and her hands are below the surface.The important thing is to lunge into streamline ASAP.Fort,are you accelerating your hands through out the pull.Many people accelerate the outsweep and slow at the insweep which will cause them to lose the water. A good drill is to swim breaststroke with paddles without using the loops so that only the pressure of the water holds them in place.

I have to say that the one stroke that I don't feel has come completely back to me since getting back into the pool after a 13 year hiatus is the breaststroke. A lot of that has to do with my leg strength, I think. I have tree trunk legs as do many breaststrokers and my kick was a big part of whatever limited ability I possessed as an age grouper. I think working on the kick is a great place to start swimming breaststroke faster... That and learning the "wave action"...

Jeff, have you tried these fins? I've heard about them. I'm thinking I might give 'em a try.

Jeff, have you tried these fins? I've heard about them. I'm thinking I might give 'em a try. I got these fins for my daughter. She's been in a growth spurt for awhile and everything hurts -- knees, shoulders, ankles. But she said they definitely hurt her knees and she won't use them right now. So they sit in my closet. I guess I could give them a whirl.