How To Swim Breaststroke _ Technique For Breaststroke Swimming

Today, we're going to be running you through the breaststroke technique step by step. Now, breaststroke is a stroke that requires quite a lot of coordination and technique, but once you get the hang of that, I think you'll be surprised by how fluid this stroke can feel, and if you are predominantly swimming freestyle in your training sessions, it can serve as a very nice alternative. To begin breaststroke, you need to keep your body flat and lie face down in the water, aiming to keep your body as straight as possible from your head to your hips. There are three steps in the arm movement, the catch, the pull, and the recovery. To start the catch, extend your arms out in front of you with your hands pitched outwards ever so slightly. Now, keeping your elbows high, sweep your arms outwards, focusing on catching as much water as possible with your hands. This moves you into the pull phase where you accelerate your arms backwards, continuing your hold on the water until your hands and forearms sweep inwards in front of your body. The whole action is often referred to scooping your hands around a large bowl. Then, with your elbows tucked in, extend your arms to the front of the stroke through the recovery, keeping them as close together as possible. A nice drill to isolate and focus on the arms is to swim breaststroke with a butterfly dolphin kick. Wearing fins can make this easier whilst also helping you to find a nice rhythm. As with all strokes and exercise, the breathing is a crucial element. This delivers oxygen to your muscles and helps you to swim more comfortably and efficiently. As your arms start the pull phase, this is when you should lift your head out of the water and breathe in through your mouth. The pull action should naturally lift your body to a degree, forcing your head out anyway. 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 mouth or through your nose. The breaststroke kick can be a difficult skill to master, but having a strong kick will really help to propel you through the stroke, particularly when you are recovering your arms forward. Starting 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 to your toes, almost aiming to get the soles of your feet together. Then, to complete the recovery phase of the kick, bend your legs, keeping your knees as close together as possible while bringing your heels back up towards your bottom. To focus on the kick, you can also use a kickboard to isolate your legs and practice the technique without the worry of timing with the arms. Now then, we hope that has clued up the intricacies of the breaststroke stroke. If you do have any questions, please drop them down in the comments below. Yes, and as we have mentioned, breaststroke does require a high level of coordination. Do be patient with it because it can take some time to get the hang of it. If you have enjoyed today's video, please do hit the thumbs up button. If you would like to see more videos from Global Triathlon Network, you can click on the globe and subscribe to the channel. If you would like to see our how to swim freestyle stroke, you can see that by clicking just down here. If you want to see a video we did about common swimming mistakes, you can find that here.