The Breaststroke Lane

Resurrecting this thread because I like talking about breaststroke and answering questions.Any breaststrokers or would be breaststrokers who want to converse?

Any advice on strengthening support muscles in the groin region?  I'm only a breaststroker since I started back up in Masters 3+ years ago, and every once in awhile I hit a breaststroke kick wrong and pull something in the groin and can't really breaststroke kick for a couple weeks.  It usually happens if I get lazy or fatigued, and it kind of makes me nervous to swim the 200 breast at all.  Or maybe it's just a consequence of getting older...

There are gym machines that strengthen that area, but I haven't found them helpful especially. The best thing I have found is to swim at least 200 yd of very slow breastsroke in warm up to get the area loose. Also while I do most of my work out at race pace I don't go over 250 yd full stroke as the kick just puts so much stress on the knees. I see it as a stress like like pitching a baseball and pitchers have a maximum pitch count.I also make sure I do groin stretching as part of my stretches after the workout. One question, do you keep your knees fairly close together during the kick, no more than 2 fists apart? If your knees are wider, there is more drag, less of your force is making you go forward, and ,most importantly for your question, it puts more strain on the groin muscles.

How can I increase my knee flexibility so I can do more of an outside in snap to kick instead of an awkwardly tight snap downwards?

There is not a quick fix, and you need to go slow to avoid straining ligaments and tendons. A good start is to lie prone, bend your knees to bring your heels up as close to your rear as possible. Now turn your feet out as far as you can using only the leg muscles, without moving your knees. Hold for 30 sec and do it 2X/day for a week. If you can do that without pain, then the next week reach back with your hands to grab your feet and pull gently to increase the stretch.Again do that 30 sec 2X/day and as it gets easier pull a little harder. 

Very happy to see this thread come to life. Breaststroke is my favorite thing to do in the pool and I'm looking forward to reading more here. I just completed a cross-country move to Colorado Springs and missed a couple of months of training because of it all. Now that I'm adapting to altitude I find it interesting breaststroke feels completely different at the moment. Good, but different. 

That's quite a move from Charleston, for the better if you love outdoors 

Definitely for the better for me. And yes I love the outdoors especially when the outdoors usually doesn't reach 95% humidity. :-)