Breaststroke - Speed and Ergonomics

Speed and Ergonomics

Breaststroke is the slowest of the four official styles in competitive swimming. The fastest breaststrokers can swim about 1.57 metres per second. Although it is the slowest of the four competitive strokes, it is commonly agreed that it is by far the most difficult to do correctly. It is also often the hardest to teach to rising swimmers after butterfly due to the importance of timing and the coordination required to move the legs properly.

In the breaststroke, the swimmer leans on the chest, arms breaking the surface of the water slightly, legs always underwater and the head underwater for the second half of the stroke. The kick is sometimes referred to as a "frog kick" because of the resemblance to the movement of a frog's hind legs; however, when done correctly it is more of a "whip kick" due to the whip-like motion that moves starting at the core down through the legs.

The body is often at a steep angle to the forward movement, which slows down the swimmer more than any other style. Professional breaststrokers use abdominal muscles and hips to add extra power to the kick, although most do not perfect this technique until the collegiate level. This much faster form of breaststroke is referred to as "wave-action" breaststroke and fully incorporates the whip-kick.

A special feature of competitive breaststroke is the underwater pullout. From the streamline position, one uses the arms to pull all the way down past the hips. As the arms are pulling down, one downward dolphin kick is allowed (as of the 2005 season), though still optional; more than one dolphin kick will result in disqualification. This is followed by the recovery of the arms to the streamline position once more with a breaststroke kick. The pullout at the start and after the turns contributes significantly to the swimming times. At turns you can do an open turn which is probably the easiest but you will need to touch with two hands or else it will result in a disqualification. Therefore one way to improve swimming times is to focus on the start and the turns.