Sorry if this is a repeat thread, but I searched and couldn't find anything. Is it odd to have your breaststroke be significantly faster than your front crawl? I thought breaststroke was supposed to be the slowest stroke, but it seems to be the opposite for me. My time for a 50y free used to be 45-50s, but it's about 35 now (VERY slow, I know). My time for 50y *** is between 28 and 29s even at the end of a long practice.
My coaches have watched my technique for both strokes, and they said that my front crawl technique is great. I'm probably taking about 10 strokes per 25 yards. The only thing I can think of is that my front crawl looks almost identical to Grant Hackett's, even when I'm trying to sprint. I think you're supposed to stay flat when you sprint, but it doesn't feel natural to me.
Anyway, does this just mean that *** is my natural stroke, or is there something horrifically wrong with my front crawl that 4 coaches and myself missed?
Former Member
Your time is much better.
Cameras -
Olympus 770 was on sale for $279 good for 10 ft deep water.
My camera - Olympus 1030 on sale for $379 god fo 10 meters deep water.
I have another camera that I paid $50 that is good for 50ft deep water. bullet camera that attaches to my computer. You can buy it on Ebay.
Any digital camera will take videos from above the water.
I found a couple on ebay for pretty cheap. I'm watching a few that end tomorrow, so hopefully I can grab one and take some good videos to post. I'm much happier with that time than before. I have to work on my crawl stamina. I can breaststroke all day, but I crawl for a few hundred yards, and I'm dead. Also, I had a nice breakthrough in the fly tonight. I actually managed to do the stroke for a bit without breaking down.
Conventional thought suggests that something must be wrong. Here is a place to start...turnover.
If your taking 10 strokes per length and it takes you 35 seconds to swim a 50, you are taking one stroke every 1.75 seconds (35/20). I recently swam a 50 free in 23.5 and took 26 strokes. My turnover was one stroke every 0.90 seconds.
So, basically, I should try and increase my turnover while keeping my strokes efficient. That seems obvious, but I guess my body just doesn't want to do it. Ha.
If you are swimming breastroke 50s in 28 at the end of workout, forget the freestyle and focus on *** - depending on your age you're probably almost at national record level now...
Very easy solution take some swimming lessons.
When swimmers came to Canada from other countries - Holland and Germany they had all learned how to swim breaststroke as their first stroke. It took them a little while to learn how to swim the crawl. We had two swimmers in our club Mike Utz (German) and Bill Vanderpool (Dutch) who were great breaststokers but could not swim the crawl. It took them a few years before they could make our freestyle relays.
You are excellent at breastroke. That is real fast. It sounds like you just dont focus on free. Free sprinting is all about a monster 6 beat kick that dictates and forces a fast turnover pace. It sounds like you mention a two beat kick which wont get it done.
When you get to the DC area, let me know. I guarantee you there are several folks (myself included) in the area that can help you get much faster.
I'll take you up on that! Thanks.
Cheers,
