How To Swim Breaststroke Properly!

In this video, I'm going to break the breaststroke technique down into a simple step-by-step guide. Firstly, we want to focus on our body position. The aim is to keep your body flat and for the most part, horizontal or parallel with the surface of the water. You should also keep your body as straight as possible from your head to your toes. Now, moving on to look at the arm movement. There are three clear stages to the arm movement, the catch, the pull, and the recovery. The catch happens with the arms outstretched in front of you, thumbs almost touching, and a slight pitch in your hands outwards. Now, you want to start pushing with your hands out and down simultaneously. To aid in this, you should start to slightly flex the arms and bring the elbows up. If you're doing this correctly, you should feel like you are catching and moving the water with your hands. This then takes us into the pull phase of the stroke. You should continue to keep that force in your hands and arms holding onto the water, but now we are moving the arms back towards our chest. As you approach your chest, you should sweep the hands inwards in front of your body. This whole action is often referred to scooping your hands around a large bowl. That is the propulsive part of the stroke done. Now, we need to get the hands and arms back to the start again. We go through what we call the recovery phase. As you finish the pull in front of you, bring your elbows in together and then extend your hands and arms forwards. The aim is to make your arms as streamlined as possible to make them easier to push back to the starting position. To practice this arm movement in isolation without the worry of your legs, you can always do a dolphin kick. It's a good natural movement that flows well with the stroke. You can also put some small fins on to help propel you whilst you learn. Before we get to the legs, let's actually discuss the breathing. Once your hands enter the pull phase, this is when you should lift your head out of the water and breathe in through your mouth. You should actually feel the pressure from that sweeping motion naturally force your body up. Try to keep your head and shoulders relaxed throughout and free from tension. Then as you extend your arms forward on the recovery phase, submerge your head back into the water and exhale slowly through your nose or your mouth. Finally, the leg kick. This is the part of the stroke that can be difficult to coordinate, so be patient as you learn. Start with your heels as close to your bottom as possible, almost like a frog. You should flex your feet, pulling your toes towards your shins. Then extend your legs outwards and backwards, focusing on pushing the water backwards with the soles of your feet. At the end of the kick, as your legs straighten and your ankles come together, point your toes, almost aiming to get the soles of your feet together. To complete the recovery phase of the kick, bend your knees and your legs, keeping your knees as close together as possible or bring your heels up towards your bottom. I would advise practicing this on its own initially, perhaps with a kickboard. When it comes to bringing it together with the arms, the propulsive part of the kick, when you extend your legs, should happen on the recovery of the arms. Then recover your legs back up whilst you pull with your arms. Basically, opposites, going from a small shape to an outstretched shape over and over. There we go. That is the breast stroke technique in a step-by-step guide. If you've enjoyed this video, please give it a like and don't forget to subscribe. If you've enjoyed this video, please give it a like and don't forget