When I was in college (1989) my coach had the breastrokers
use special breastroker paddles for breastroke pull. The hand
end came half-way up my palm - so we had to make a fist over the hand
end to hold them in place. The other end was wider and went
all the way down my forearm. I would describe the overall shape
basically as a miniature cricket bat. My coach explained to me back then
that these paddles were to help breastrokers learn to use their forearms.
These were the only paddles we ever used for breastroke pull **.
Anyway, I've been doing some breastroke training again recently.
I looked quickly on-line for breastroke paddles, but couldn't find
anything close to what I used in college. Do breastrokers these
days train with any "special" paddles, use regular swimming paddles,
or something else?
Thanks,
John
** As if breastroke pull wasn't slow enough, swimming with a fist and
these paddles made these sets even slower for us, but we were still
grouped with the flyers and backstrokers during pull drills, who were going
faster with their conventional paddles....ugghhh! No fair! There, I feel
better now, thanks for listening.
I only use paddles early in the season for one drill.That drill is like what Rich described except that I don't put any straps on and just use water pressure to keep the paddles on.If there are any dead spots in the stroke the paddles fall off.Otherwise my shoulders are too twitchy to risk much paddle work.As Rich noted hand speed is very important.My favorite hand speed drill is head up breaststroke pull(use dolphin kick if necessary,but it's better without it IMO.) To keep good,smooth forward motion with your head up and no kick requires fast hands.I read this was one of Hansen's favorite drills.
John
I use regular small paddles and just use the finger loop and pull ***...if the paddles "wiggle" you're not holding the water. My own insight in trying to learn the wave style vs the old style is that my arms do not need to pull as hard. Partly due to the speed of the recovery, and the fact that the arms do not pull back as far as they do in the old way of swimming BR. That's my experience.
I do lots of pulls for speed or timing rather than working on a massive pull. In the old style I found the pull was more a power movement than now. I'm not saying you don't need a good pull but my focus is on the speed and getting out into streamline without slipping the water--I'm still struggling :D
You need to get the top advice from Jeff, Allen, and Wayne though (listed in random order).
Here is a grand link (Wayne's site) with more information than you can shake a frog's leg at ;)
http://www.breaststroke.info/
The Finis Fulcrum brace and the techpaddle are two products that are Early Vertical Forearm (EVF) trainers. They promote an EVF positions that are important for all competitive strokes. If you go to youtube and enter EVF + Swimming you'll see some of the equipment. Coach T.
