Swimming workout: Find your balance point in breaststroke

I know that a lot of you enjoy a nice swimming practice on Sundays. So, I have a special workout for you that will help you find your balance point in breaststroke. Before you get into the water you would like to try a dryland exercise that will hep you get the feeling of the basic rocking motion in breaststroke. The exercise is called rocking drill (obviously you can find the same drill under a different name) and you lie on an exercise mat on your chest (prone). Then you alternately rock your head and chest up as you bend your knees and raise your heels toward your buttocks, then you rock you head and chest downward as you straighten your legs. I would love to hear your comments on the workout, and let me know what would you like the focus of the next workout to be. Enjoy!!!

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Backstroke to breastroke turn

The back to breast transition is the turn where the most time is won or lost of any other turn. The two most common ways of performing this IM transition turn are the traditional open turn and the crossover flip turn. Generally, the crossover is quicker off the wall, but the push off is not as powerful, so the two turns even out in the end. Furthermore, unless the crossover is done precisely, the likelihood of a disqualification is fairly high. The crossover is much harder to teach and perform and should be taught to seniors swimmers.

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Breaststroke underwater pullout sequence

The underwater pullout sequence is a great equalizer of breastsroke races and it's used during the breaststroke send away (breast start, breast to breast turn and back to breast turn in IM). Even poor breaststrokers who streamline well, have a strong butterfly pull and kick, and can fake a single compact breaststroke kick can compete on the walls with the fastest swimmers, and they will have eight to nine fewer meters to swim.

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FINA thinking of changing breaststroke rule

FINA, in a move believed by some as a way around introducing underwater cameras in disputes and appeals, may relax the rules on breaststroke to allow multiple dolphin kicks at the start of races, according to former 1500m great Vladimir Salnikov.

Now the president of the Russian swim federation, Salnikov today tells the Russian swim community that breaststroke swimmers would be allowed to take multiple dolphin kicks during the first 15m of races. Currently, rules allow one kick, with many using more but getting away with it because officials on the deck cannot see through the splash generated by the dive at the start of races. The one-kick rule will remain in place at turns, when there is no splash to block the view of judges on the poolside.

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Common mistakes during the insweep of the armstroke in breaststroke

As you already know the armstroke of breaststroke is divided into four parts: the outsweep, the catch, the insweep, and the recovery. A few days ago I blogged on the common mistakes that swimmers tend to make during the outsweep of the armstroke (see here). Today’s post is about mistakes swimmers do and should avoid during the insweep.

The most common mistake that swimmers make during this phase of the stroke is to direct the hands forward. The forward speed of the body will drop off dramatically once swimmers begin to move the arms forward during the insweep. Consequently, they will either terminate the insweep early or they will waste time and effort performing a movement that is non propulsive. The forward and inward arm movement produces an outward and backward drag force and a forward and outward lift force. Swimmers are bound to decelerate when they sweep the hands forward during the insweep because any small forward component of force that may be produced by this direction of limb motion will be negated by the large backward component of the drag force they are also producing.

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Common mistakes during the outsweep of the armstroke in breaststroke

The armstroke of the breaststroke is divided into three parts, the outsweep, the insweep, and the recovery. During these parts swimmers can make mistakes that they should avoid. Today I’m going to list down the common mistakes that can be done during the outsweep of the armstroke. The mistakes that are more common during the other two parts will be described in the following days.

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