Topic: Breaststroke
From: John Carey
Date: Thursday, April 13, 2006 05:33 AM

Please, somebody reassure me that breaststroke is really difficult to do well.

Four months ago I could do 100 yards in 1:51. Then I concentrated on other strokes, and a month ago could only do 2:08. I have gotten my time back to 1:56. But how do I go faster? I wonder if I need more upper arm strength? I know TI tends to discourage weights, but it might be more helpful for breaststroke. If so, what exercises, specifically are most important?

From: Robert McAdams
Date: Thursday, April 13, 2006 11:02 AM

One of the things that used to really exasperate me about my breaststroke was the inconsistency in my times.

The first lap of breaststroke I ever swam was six years ago. My time for that 25y lap was 28 seconds. By July of 2002, I had cut my fastest 25y lap time to 22 seconds. My problem was that I couldn't do this with any consistency. I'd do a lap of breaststroke a couple of times in the same pool session, and my time for one might be 24 seconds, while my time for the other could be over 26 seconds.

I eventually figured out the reason was that I didn't understand what makes you fast, and was overlooking some important things. On some laps, I'd fortuitously do something right and a better time. On another lap, I'd do them wrong and get a slower time.

Let's review some of these important things:

1. How you recover your arms is every bit as important as how you stroke them. How you recover your legs is every bit as important as how you kick them. This is because, during recovery, your arms and legs are moving “the wrong way.” Consequently, if you do them incorrectly, you can sap nearly all of the momentum you gained from your stroke and kick. Simple things like not keeping your elbows close to your body during your arm recovery, or dropping your thighs or spreading your knees during your leg recovery can slow you down enormously!
2. Remember that your anchor point for both your arm stroke and your kick should be your streamline. The goal in freestyle and backstroke (and, to some extent, in butterfly) is to maintain as much of a streamline as possible while you're stroking. But in breaststroke, this is well-nigh impossible. So the next best thing is to make sure that after each stroke and kick, you return to a streamline, and do it as quickly as possible. So as soon as the propulsive part of your arm stroke is complete, immediately sweep your hands in and slide them forward in a narrow, needle-like recovery ending in a streamline with your face in the water, and do it quickly, as though you were playing "hot potato". And as soon as you've finished kicking back (what I like to call the "paddle kick", because you are using the insides of your feet as paddles), immediately point your toes in the direction from which you have been coming and then bring your legs forcefully together into a streamline, squeezing the water out from between them and then letting yourself glide.
3. Make sure your timing is right. You should be recovering your heels to your butt as your hands sweep together, then your toes outward and grab water using the insides of your feet as you slide your arms forward. You may want to watch the tiles on the bottom of the pool as you swim and watch for points during your stroke cycle when you see the tiles slow down or stop, since this will mean that you've found a dead spot in your timing. Keep in mind that it takes less energy to maintain your speed than it does to build it back after it is lost.

Also keep in mind that it can be counterproductive to expend most of your energy during the early laps. See this article entitled Learning to Pace Breaststroke.

From: Terry Laughlin
Date: Friday, April 14, 2006 12:04 PM

Adding to Bob’s good advice on breaststroke, I’d like to clarify that we do not discourage weight training. For anyone beyond age 35, resistance training of some kind is an essential part of staying fit and having functional strength (by which I mean that it doesn't tax you to spade the garden or shovel snow). I used to do weight training but, after suffering a ruptured biceps tendon while doing bench presses, have shifted to doing body weight and light hand weight (30 lbs or less) exercise on a balance ball. This has also proven to be much more akin to how I use my body while swimming.

Our take on weight training for swimming is that it should be one of the lowest priorities for improvement you pursue. We believe that your priorities for improving your swimming should be:

1. Improve your self-awareness and sensitivity to the water. My swim buddy Dave Barra says he uses warmup to "erase the boundaries between my body and the water." That's a good goal for all your swimming. Then use that self-awareness to:
2. Reduce drag. Bob's suggestion to remain in streamline for as much of each stroke cycle as possible addresses this. And in breaststroke, you encounter less drag if you do this streamlined glide just below the surface.
3. Increase propulsion. In breaststroke, it's really not arm muscles that do the work. From the streamline, you begin the stroke by sculling your hands outside your shoulders, then wrap the hands down and in to trap water on your palms and forearms. Once you have done so, you mainly use torso muscle to draw your hips toward your hands. Your arm muscles are mainly used to stabilize your hands in the position where they anchored.

Doing this correctly, and repeating it thousands of times, accomplishes two things:

1. It embeds the movement in muscle memory.
2. It conditions the muscles that perform the movement. In other words they gain the strength needed to perform that movement. As the movement becomes a stronger habit, you can begin doing it at higher speed. That higher speed will place more of a load on the same muscles and they'll be stimulated to increase in strength again.

Apart from your swimming, you can always do supplemental weight training, but this should be mainly to feel better and healthier overall. The most beneficial thing you can do for your swimming performance will always be to practice effective, intelligent swimming movement with all your senses paying keen attention.

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