I practiced a few lenghts of breaststroke the other day and had an instructor watch me. He suggested pulling the arms in almost a dog -paddle like fashion, with the hands going no more than shoulder width all the way through the stroke. It did this a few times and it felt pretty good. However, it looks like recommendations on this site and others is to open the arms much wider and higher in the water.
Is this the newer method? Perhaps, he just knows the way that he was taught many years ago. I assume that stroke technique recommendations change over time and there's some debate over what works and what doesn't. Is this an accurate statement???
As always, thanks for your insight!
:wave:
Actually, someone recommended I work on breaststroke to serve as a "recovery" stroke during an open water freestyle swim. Seems like it would take more energy to do this stroke for a given distance, maybe he was just saying "if you get tired or frustrated do something different for a while"?
When I've done open water swimming, I'll do about 8-10 strokes of free, then a few ***, to both sight and relax a little. *** was one stroke I learned as a kid that mostly stuck with me over the years, so I'm pretty comfortable with it.
Actually, someone recommended I work on breaststroke to serve as a "recovery" stroke during an open water freestyle swim. Seems like it would take more energy to do this stroke for a given distance, maybe he was just saying "if you get tired or frustrated do something different for a while"?
When I've done open water swimming, I'll do about 8-10 strokes of free, then a few ***, to both sight and relax a little. *** was one stroke I learned as a kid that mostly stuck with me over the years, so I'm pretty comfortable with it.
