Breaststoke helping freestyle????????????

[pinda]

Hi guys freestyle by far is my worst kick. I recently found out I wasn't relaxed and was fighting the water. Funny enough after doing 6 25m sets of breaststroke, I was then able to swim a very relaxed freestyle, I actually felt the muscles in my back being engaged. Can anyone tell me why this only happend after breaststroke?

[shuumai]

Originally Posted by pinda

Hi guys freestyle by far is my worst kick. I recently found out I wasn't relaxed and was fighting the water. Funny enough after doing 6 25m sets of breaststroke, I was then able to swim a very relaxed freestyle, I actually felt the muscles in my back being engaged. Can anyone tell me why this only happend after breaststroke?

Some people had commented in the past that they swim better when they are tired. Maybe your legs didn't have any fight left it them? Maybe breaststroke requires more core engagement and that just crossed over to the crawl? I know I constantly make adjustments to my back and abs while doing breaststroke.

[pinda]

My legs for once were relaxed long and I didn't fight to get them up.

[Jamwhite]

What type of freestyle kick do you do?

If you are not use to doing a 2-beat kick, perhaps the breaststroke rhythm helped you to coordinate your spear with your kick (which are very similiar).

While doing breaststroke, when your kick happens, your arms are close to the freestyle underswitch postion. Your breaststroke kick should drive your arms to streamline. If your breast kick and arms are in sync, this is the same basic movement that you want to do in freestyle.

In freestyle, when your right arm is recovering, your left leg is deeper in the water. In a 2-beat kick, you will kick the deeper leg as part of rotating your hips, and spear your recovery arm as part of your rotating your shoulders. If these two movements are in sync, as in breaststroke, then you have engaged hip drive and will you kick yourself into streamline.

[pinda]

At this point to be honest I am uncertain which kick I have. I can tell you though my legs weren't kicking very fast and that was a first.

[naj]

Ever since I learned the two-beat kick, I've noticed how much more relaxed my swimming is becoming, but I do -- still -- tend to go out quickly at the beginning of my workout and after about 45 mins I notice that my kick is far more relaxed than when I started. Gotta work on that, another in my long list of annoying habits in the water!

[pinda]

I went swimming yesterday and I tried the superman balance. My legs are very long and to counteract that my head is practically in a tuck position in order to bring my legs up. I realise though that my kick now feels very very light.