The 5 most important things in breaststroke are in this order:
1- Timing - This is the most
important thing in breaststroke. And so we asked on our social media
which way of swimming was best? A lot of people got it right but also a lot got it wrong and
the main difference between these two is the timing. So the correct answer was the gold one.
If you kick and pull at the same time you will not move fast or efficiently.
Look at this example. All of the propulsion from the arms is being stoped by the kick and
then all of the propulsion of the kick is being stoped by the arms and chest.
So remember the correct timing is pull, kick and glide.
Pull, kick and glide.
2- Ankle circles - The second most important thing in breaststroke are the ankles. When
you swim breaststroke you will be doing this with your ankles. Let’s stop the motion of
the knees and you will see it more clearly. See how the ankles move in circles really quickly?
You need to practice that, you can do it on land first and then move the knees as well.
Remember, move the ankles quickly. 3- Narrow knees - One of the most common
mistakes in breaststroke is to open the knees too much. Also opening the knees first before the
ankles is a mistake. Both of these things are wrong. The best way to swim breaststroke is to
open the knees very little and quickly. What makes the ankles open wide is actually at the hip joint.
Practice this on the floor. Lay face down, bring the knees up
and then open the ankles. Repeat that exercises 10 times slowly and then 10 times fast, be careful
not to bump your ankles. Then after you open them, stretch the knees, and then bring them
back to 90 degrees. Do those circles ten times to really improve that muscle memory.
Remember bend the knees but don’t open them too much.
4- Fast breath - The slowest part of breaststroke is here, when the upper body is out of the water.
So in order to spend the least amount of time possible in the slowest part of breaststroke
you need to take very quick breaths and move your arms quickly from this point to this point. There
is no time to exhale when your head is out, you need to start exhaling underwater so you can
take a very quick breath above. They don’t need to be full breaths, you can do shallow breaths
as long as you do them quickly. Don’t worry about running out of breath, in breaststroke
you breathe every stroke, it’s not like in butterfly where you can keep your head down.
Remember don’t spend too much time with your head out of the water.
5- High hips - The last point is very important if you want to swim fast breaststroke, but it is
the most difficult to do correctly. Keeping the hips high should be easy
when you are gliding. You just push your chest down a little and that will lift your
hips. The challenge is to keep it high when you are taking a breath. You need 4 things:
core strength, lower spine flexibility, loose hip flexors, and explosive hamstrings.
1st Core strength because these muscles are the ones that will bring your torso up above
the water, the arms also help with this, but the core needs to be tight to maintain those hips up.
2nd the lower spine needs to be flexible. If you cannot do this on land,
with the help of the floor and gravity, what makes you think you can go up to this position
in the water? The hips will sink instead if you don’t bend the lower back.
3rd - Loose hip flexors. If your hip flexor muscles are tight,
then the knees will come down. To know if you have tight hips flexors do the Thomas Test.
Lay down face up and pull one knee close to your chest. If you feel a tight stretch and If you
lift the knee of the floor or if the knee leans to the middle you might have tight hip flexors.
Do this exercise 10 times with each leg to start loosening those hip flexors and then hold
this stretch for a minute with each leg. Don’t forget to tighten your glute, your core and do
a posterior tilt of the pelvis. Then you can lean forward 10 seconds and back for 1 minute total.
4rd and last you need explosive hamstrings. Meaning you need to bend the knees quickly. Every
millisecond you waste bringing your ankles up, is going to cost you in drag and will likely make you
sink a little. An excellent exercise for this is the hamstring slides. Do 3 sets of 8 like this.
This video is just the start to truly understand what a good breaststroke technique should look
like, if you want to dive deeper into Breaststroke knowledge, click this playlist. Or if you want to
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