Swimming technique for breaststroke

Visit any pool and you will see people going up and down the pool, doing breaststroke. It’s a great relaxing stroke, which almost everyone can do. Its also a very good calorie burner as it uses lots of muscles.

Right lets look together at how to swim with Breaststroke...

1	Start in a streamlined position (see picture) with your head looking forward with your eyes at the level of the surface. Your arms and legs are together at this point.
2	The stroke starts with your arms pulling outwards, backwards and downwards to a point just in front of the shoulders. Legs remain straight.
3	Now the arms begin to sweep inwards. Legs still remain straight.
4	As your arms sweep in your legs are brought forward and your feet will turn outwards ready for the kick.
5	Your arms are now extended back towards the starting position and your legs begin the kick. Your legs will move in a backwards and outwards motion. This will drive you forward in to the start position and a nice long glide.
6	Return to the start

Rhythm and timing are essential to improve on your breaststroke technique and the following tips are here to help you improve on this.

Here Is A Great Swimming Video To Help

Ok, Lets look at some extra tips …..

	Its very important to practice the glide stage after the kick. You really need to stretch out and relax on this part of the stroke, don’t bring the arms inwards to quickly. Rushing the stroke will slow you down; allowing yourself to glide will give great forward movement.
	Skewkick – when one leg is doing something different to the other, you have a skewkick. Surprisingly it is not just a leg problem, its is often due to tension in the neck and head. *What can I do then?* 1) Bring your neck/head forward away from the spine, this relaxes the whole body and often solve the problem, also, 2) During the Kick stage, turn your feet outwards, this will align the legs, knees and hips.
	And finally…Don’t bring your arms too far back. I teach it like this,
1.	Image you are scooping the remains of a cake mixture off the sides of a large round mixing bowl.
2.	Bring your arms into your body, arms tucked against ribs and hands by your chest.
3.	Finally push your hands and arms forward to the starting position.

I hope this page has been of use to you, please contact us if you would like to add further tips for our readers. Thanks

Choose another stroke to explore

Butterfly

Backstroke

Front Crawl

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