Is breaststroke underrated and held by regulations

Originally Posted by CoachBobM

The only difference in the rules for turns is that breaststrokers and butterfliers are required to touch the wall with both hands on each turn, whereas in backstroke and freestyle the rule is just that some part of your body must touch the wall (which normally ends up being the bottom of the swimmer's feet as they kick off the wall). Being required to touch the wall with both hands is what makes it impossible to do flip turns in breaststroke or butterfly. But I have trouble imagining how a swimmer would do a flip turn in breaststroke without making arm movements that would violate the normal rules for breaststroke arm movements.

I will go with your take, it is slightly slower than flip turn but not a deal breaker. I think the breastroker should be allowed "free" underwater dolphin as flyers/freestylers, etc.

Current rules for backstroke, butterfly, and freestyle require that swimmers surface within 15m after the start and after each turn. What limit would you want to use instead? Currently there are no rules requiring breaststrokers to surface within a certain distance, though the rules on kicking effectively limit how far it makes sense to stay underwater.

I'm not expert enough to set the limit but I would think it needs to be shorten, I swim on 50m, some competition are on 50m but a lot of racing and training happens on 25m pools. 15m is a lot 3/5 of the length: too much especially on short distances.

I'm not sure what you mean by "'breathing/head out' pattern". The only rule in breaststroke is that some portion of your head must break the surface on each stroke cycle. That's actually less restrictive than the rules for backstroke, butterfly, and freestyle, which require that after surfacing, the swimmer must remain at the surface until the next turn or the finish.

I got that one wrong I thought the swimmer had to get the whole head (which happens anyway even at the slowest pace in racing /200m). The rules actually allow for some variations of the stroke on longer distances.

There's no question that the rules of breaststroke place a lot of restrictions on what a swimmer can and can't do with their arms and legs. Butterfly came into being because the rules for breaststroke were less restrictive and didn't prohibit doing an over-the-water arm recovery. But when it appeared that the classic breaststroke was going to disappear in competition, the rules for breaststroke were tightened and the new way of doing breaststroke (i.e., butterfly) was made into a separate event. The bottom line is that if you don't place restrictions on how breaststroke is done, it will cease to be the stroke that has historically been known as breaststroke.

Anyway I argue for the joy of arguing, the main issue let say when comparing breast to fly is in fact the underwater dolphin.
It is really tough to set rule for such a stroke that can be swum underwater without creating the level of exertion underwater dolphin does. The issue would solve itself on longer distances but on short distance the swimmer may hardly break the surface.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge :)

[CoachBobM]

Originally Posted by liolio

I will go with your take, it is slightly slower than flip turn but not a deal breaker. I think the breastroker should be allowed "free" underwater dolphin as flyers/freestylers, etc.

The current breaststroke rules allow one dolphin kick after the start and after each turn, and that's a relatively recent change to the rules. And I can remember what spawned it:

Nowadays, it has become common to have underwater cameras at the big championship meets and to have them follow the swimmer who is in the lead. But the official calls regarding what is legal or illegal are made by stroke judges without reference to the camera. But at a major FINA world competition, the underwater shots of the winning breaststroker in one of the heats clearly showed that he had done a single dolphin kick before doing his pulldown and beginning to stroke. Since the stroke judge hadn't spotted this, he couldn't be disqualified, but the response of the judges in subsequent heats seemed to be to go overboard and disqualify breaststrokers if they weren't positively sure what they did was legal (instead of giving the benefit of the doubt to the swimmer, as they should do), resulting in some breaststrokers being erroneously DQed.

In the aftermath, it was concluded that since stroke judges couldn't always see whether a single dolphin kick had occurred, the rules should be modified to allow a single dolphin kick.

The reason for not allowing dolphin kicking when streamlining in breaststroke is that one of the things that distinguishes breaststroke from other strokes is that the dolphin kick is not a legal kick (whereas it is a legal kick for freestyle, backstroke, and butterfly).

I'm not expert enough to set the limit but I would think it needs to be shorten, I swim on 50m, some competition are on 50m but a lot of racing and training happens on 25m pools. 15m is a lot 3/5 of the length: too much especially on short distances.

Actually, it can be worse than that! The 15m limit on underwater streamlining (in freestyle, backstroke, and butterfly) applies even in 25y pools, where 15m is slightly more than 3/5 of the length of the pool.

I got that one wrong I thought the swimmer had to get the whole head (which happens anyway even at the slowest pace in racing /200m). The rules actually allow for some variations of the stroke on longer distances.

The rules don't require breathing on every stroke, even though most breaststrokers do it.

Anyway I argue for the joy of arguing, the main issue let say when comparing breast to fly is in fact the underwater dolphin.
It is really tough to set rule for such a stroke that can be swum underwater without creating the level of exertion underwater dolphin does. The issue would solve itself on longer distances but on short distance the swimmer may hardly break the surface.

I think it's more of an issue for turns than for starts. When I set my own lifetime personal best time in 50 breaststroke, I actually streamlined more than half the length of the (25y) pool after my start (in spite of not being allowed to do dolphin kicking), but didn't go as far as that after my turn.


Bob

Not much to add to that insightful post :)

I've been swimming breaststroke a lot lately whereas it is not that good for my right knee or knees in general.

As my experience grows my opinion changes. I do not think breast is under-rated I think lots of competitive people simply do not care for the slower alternative and that is the end of the line for most.
I still wish for some change in competition, foremost races length as competition is the best incentive for techniques to evolves.

Other than I change my breast kick into a fly kick as i focus on reinforcing the medial muscles of my tight as well as ligament (do you say PAPI in English?). I also do a more careful, wider outsweep/insweep in an attempt to equalize the strength between my left and right side (strengthen my right side). Damned slow at first, still slow after a while though as <i get used to it that almost physical therapy like training may do great for my butterfly. I eased much further into the fly kick, and realize that my hips flexors, namely the rectus femoris was way too tense bending more than I realized). I can do many lengths of "breastfly" at a low level of exertion.
It also got my to further improve the whole body undulation and how it relates with breathe and legs. So as an advice to the reader here mind your hips flexors (especially Rectus femoris) it bends you (I guess it applies to freestyle too), armstring seems to be a more known source of issues both need to be relaxed at least not tense, water does not "understand" tight and rigid motions.

[CoachBobM]

Originally Posted by liolio

As my experience grows my opinion changes. I do not think breast is under-rated I think lots of competitive people simply do not care for the slower alternative and that is the end of the line for most.
I still wish for some change in competition, foremost races length as competition is the best incentive for techniques to evolves.

It does require a weird mentality in a competitor to try to be faster than anyone else when doing the slowest of the 4 competitive strokes!

There's also a major aspect to breaststroke that really doesn't exist in the other 3 strokes: There's more that the rules require you to do the wrong way (i.e., contrary to your direction of motion) underwater than in any other stroke. The fact that your elbows have to remain in the water when you're recovering your arms forward, and the fact that you have a kick recovery (which you really don't in any other stroke) means that it's possible to build a lot of momentum with your stroke and kick only to lose a lot of it during the arm and leg recoveries.

Because of all the rules for breaststroke, it's also easier to be DQed on it than on any other stroke. I've only been DQed 5 times in my swimming career, and 4 of those were on breaststroke (2 in breaststroke events and 2 during the breaststroke leg of individual medleys). So I know from experience that it can be pretty discouraging when you're expecting to get a first place and/or a personal best time in an event, only to see a DQ by your name instead of a time and placing. In the other strokes, the object is to see how fast you can swim, while in breaststroke, the object is to see how fast you can swim without being DQed.


Bob