can't help with breaststroke, unfortunately.

Back -

keep your head back - don't look down at your feet.
keep the shoulders rolling, enter pinkie first.
don't "pause" at the bottom of the stroke.
don't overreach / cross over
keep the kick going. backstroke kick is more important than in freestyle.

---

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

There are a ton of good videos on youtube.

I'd start there.

---

Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Well, I knew that (I think we all know about youtube by now). Youtube is great starting point (that's how I started with fly), but interacting with real people on ST allows for one to take the advice, go work on it, and then give feedback and get more advice. It's basically free online coaching. Others benefit from the process since they can read quicker than watch videos. I can't have an interactive dialog with a youtube video. Jason, as an example has been really helpful on multiple fronts.

The reason why I started a separate thread vs embed it in the fish thread, is because many tri guys have IM sets at their masters clubs, that often guys hate. If some of the guys here can help with a few tips, then great if that can compliment the coach on deck (some are great, some are useless, some are great with real swimmers, but largely ignore the triathletes perhaps because of the perception that we don't care to get better at anything but free)

Can we just tell people to use the search function, and go to youtube and just shut down any further posts on ST. Everything that there ever was that needs to be discussed is either already on ST or on youtube. To my best memory, in 14 years around here, there have been no threads focused on these strokes though.

Both of these strokes are very kick dependent, so that will be a great place to start. Like Jason I can't give much advice on breaststroke, but I'll try

Breast
-Focus on snapping your ankles together during the kick. I see a lot of adult on-set swimmers that go really wide during the "extension" phase of the kick, then just kind of slowly bring their legs together. You want to really focus on keeping your kick compact, and forcing your lower legs together through the end of the kick. For me that can feel like your almost trying to smash your ankles together.
-Use that strong finish of your kick to drive your arms forward, and make sure to keep your head neutral during the whole stroke. Don't pick your head up during the recovery, you'll waste all that energy from your kick
-Work on your pull-outs/ underwaters


Back
-Focus on underwaters and walls, even just 2-3 fly kicks off each wall and a good quick turn (both open from fly and flip) will help tremendously
-Kicking and body position are essential to good backstroke. take some time to work on a really neutral position where you are kicking on your back, in streamline, with your head neutral or slightly back, and the rest of your body nice and in-line. you don't want your hips sinking as that will make rotating sloppy.
-When you begin each stroke, focus on that initial catch. It's a similar motion to freestyle in that the initial catch really comes from the forearm, and then think about pulling one column of water through the full stroke. A great drill for this is actually pulling on the lane line!
-Really think about rotating from the core/ hips. Using your core and hips to rotate your shoulders will place your body in position for a really strong, "high elbow" stroke, where the power is coming from your pecs and lats.
-Finish each stroke. When you come to the end of each stroke, think about rotating your forearm all the way down to your thigh, before bringing it back. This one is really tough to describe without video.
-Don't ignore your breathing pattern. If you feel like you're coming into the breast portion gassed, try breathing every 3 stroke (out 2, in 1). Especially if you're really turning over, breathing every 2 can make you feel hyper-ventilated.

And like Jason said, YouTube videos are your friend. Really easy to visualize these techniques when you see them being done properly!

awww, dd probably hasn't had enough caffeine yet.

backstroke - hand comes out of the water with the thumb up. As your arm is in the air, rotate the hand so the pinky goes in first. Think about hands entering at 11 and 1.

in backstroke I think about throwing my shoulders back.

---

maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

LOL....I think all those 5 I hit a checkmark on "what not to do" other than entering pinky first and the kick. I definitely have/had a pause and for the life of me, if I keep my head back, I get all kinds of water in my nose....I suppose there is a reason for those nose clips!!! I'll keep working on all this. It really helped today.

Dev,

Please don't do this at an event that I am participating in. I am not the best swimmer and I really don't enjoy getting kicked by people doing the breast stroke.

on the head position, you just want to be looking at the ceiling directly above you. You still need to time your breaths, just like freestyle.

I tried the nose clips, hate them...

---

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Um, the challenge wasn't to do it a race -- just to do the race distances as a bunch of IMs.

-Eric

Why on earth would I penalize myself in an actual race doing IM, when I can just go faster swimming free? What Eric said, it's just a stupid challenge to mix it up in the pool in training to hopefully become a better swimmer

Sorry, that wasn't clear to me. I interpreted "a half IM leg and an IM leg" to mean that "leg" of the triathlon.

devashish_paul wrote:
....on the fish thread, we got a crazy challenge going on to do both a half IM leg and an IM leg continuous Individual Medley (8x200m + 1x100m IM for the half, 19x200m IM for the full). I need to work on my back and breast stroke this month. I got the fly part kind of nailed. Can the smart guys here give me their top 5 items I should work on to move faster in both back and breast?

My kids attended a clinic that Olympian Josh Davis gave some time ago and he mentioned a breast stroke drill and some other tips that really seemed to help me. It came from Ryan Lochte, who you may remember tore a ligament in his knee a few years ago when a crazed fan hugged/attacked him and pop went the knee. Anyway, he had to work on breast stroke while recovering from the knee injury and couldn't do the standard breast stroke kick. So he did the breast stroke catch and recovery with a butterfly kick. When I tried this it really seemed to reinforce the short axis aspect of the breast stroke technique for me. Since you said you've got fly down, this may help you.

Also, the different distances of breaststroke pool races (100 vs 200) have a different emphasis on the upper body versus lower body and a difference in stroke rate. Since you are doing this as part of a long set, you should really try to emphasize the glide in between each stroke and get as streamlined as you can during the glide. The stroke itself will be the same speed, just the glide is longer. Also, the time when your arms are in the catch phase and when your knees are bent, they are a huge drag, so do those actions as quickly as possible to minimize the time that you are in that poor hydrodynamic position.

This. You really need a good streamline glide after every kick if you're going to be doing that much breaststroke, especially as part of a larger swim. Keep your head down, just like you would coming off the wall. Keep it down even when you come up to breath.

Backstroke, I don't have much for you other than to try a wider arc on recovery. I used to swim a very flat backstroke, and try to bring my arm straight overhead. Problem is the shoulder socket can't accomodate that and allow the arm to rotate so you can enter pinkie first. There was a little "hitch" I had to get around, just before the hand entry. I went with a wider arc, and the impingement was gone. Stroke rate went up with no increase in effort. Then, I realized I could rotate my body towards the stroking side. The recovery now is coming straight overhead, but, since my body's rotated, I'm still avoiding the hitch. I cut 2-3 strokes per length off when I started rotating.

---

"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

As an inveterate IM'er, (hey, I have to do something to break up the monotony and avoid old-timer's over-use injury;-) my $.02 on breaststroke is to spend time with the kickboard. As you examine the floor tile (instead of having your head up, maybe use a Finis snorkle for this) on your breast kick sets, let the water teach you what leg particular movement shoots you forward the most. My bubble butt puts me in an entirely different position than I imagine you are in. The silence of the pool is your best teacher. As already mentioned, the glide can really be emphasized here as well. I'm always amazed at the amount of glide time when I watch Olympians,. If anything, doing more with less (strokes per length) will take you further, faster.

---

DFL > DNF > DNS

OK, here are a couple of breast stroke tips.

1. The breast stroke kick is very weird. People (incl. me) don't really know what they are doing when they are doing a good kick. I was shocked one day to realize that the soles of my feet were coming together at the end of each kick. If you already feel that you are getting good propulsion from your kick, your technique is OK. Little fixes include keeping your knees relatively close together and whipping your feet together and down in the propulsive phase. If you are not getting good propulsion, try letting your knees go wider for a while. That sometimes lets your feet find the right angle to give the propeller effect necessary for the kick to work. Once you find the feeling, move those knees closer together.
2. Also on the kick, on the recovery phase, you do not want to bend at the waist. Instead, you want nearly all the bending to be at the knees. That way, you avoid having your thighs being dragged forward perpendicular to your direction. With the bend all at the knees, you have a straight torso/thigh combo that is mostly horizontal (angling down slightly) and your recovering lower legs are being held together in the draft thus created). One of the best drills to work on this is breast stroke kick on your back. The feeling is your trying to keep your thighs parallel to the surface while your ankles are reaching back to your butt and then kick.
3. There have been many people with good breast stroke who do not have great kicks. Obviously, they must have great pulls to make up for it. The biggest obstacle to having a great pull is the tendency for your body to stay on an upward incline while it is bobbing up and down. Obviously, each downward bob will create a backwards thrust. The way around this is to have a slight pike at the waist during the pull phase. This will give your body a torque on the pitch axis towards nose down, feet up. When you finish your stroke and your breath, you will feel you can just dive forward and down. The timing with the kick gets a little tricky here, but at the end of the pull, you want to unpike (somewhat violently -- this gives you a little thrust) while simultaneously recovering (very quickly) your legs so when you are diving forward your legs are thrusting you on a nice horizontal plane. The drill for all this is breast stroke pull with NO kick. AND NO CHEATING BY DOING BUTTERFLY KICK. You have it right when you can make good forward progress. You will feel you can "dive" forward and down on the recovery instead of bobbing down and sliding backwards. The pull itself is a normal swimming high elbow pull -- you just stop it when your hands and elbows are perpendicular to the surface, snap your elbows to your sides and dive your hands forward.

Good luck

I don't count as a fish but I have this tidbit: single arm backstroke really helped me get a feel for the correct backstroke catch.

Here are some beginner level things that help my breast stroke. Unfortunately, that's about as advanced as I swim.
1. Point your toes with feet together when you're gliding.
2. Pull hard and longitudinally.
3. Breathe every other stroke (is this legal?)
4. Increase cadence.

Breathing every other stroke is not legal. I don't know if you really care as its not like this is an officiated event however not the fastest way to swim breaststroke. I would work on keeping long and streamline during breaststroke.
Long glides (in streamline),
Keep your arms out in front of you, don't let your hands get caught under your body/bring your elbows back to your body.
Try to keep your feet pointed and legs straight as long as possible, kicks should be fast and compact, starting your kick just before you start driving your hands forward.

Besides the Br with fly kick (not a Lochte drill, used by almost every swim team everywhere), 2kicks and 1 pull, it will help you get your timing down.
Finally a good pullout will really help. Should be able to get about 1/2 pool length with a good pullout for little energy expenditure.

When swimming breast stroke I try to imagine that i get somewhat of a porpoise motion. A strong pull bringing the chest up and hands near the chest. Then with the kick, lunge forward with your hands and "lead" with the top of your head (not your face). I get a little bit of a dive followed by the glide. I'm not the fastest breast stroker but i can get going pretty well (in my younger days :-) )

Thanks to everyone on these inputs. Some of all this I am doing, other items, all of this is fairly new. I think my timing between kick, dive/glide, pull is all off. I'll work on this and report back.

Gary P, great points about the backstroke. I definitely have a dead spot, so will see what I am doing there. It seems like I need to make the kick more compact and soles of feet should slap together at the end?

Make sure it's wide enough to get a handful of lane line. Really gets you moving.

My main suggestion for back is kick. Kick. And kick some more. Head neutral, with your body pivoting around the center line. You should really roll side to side. And kick.

Ha! I find backstroke kicking incredibly hard. Guess I need to spend more practice time kicking....ugh.

I was a breaststroker as a swimmer 21+ years ago and my fave drill was 2 kicks, 1 pull. As someone else said, it helps with your timing of the kick. Breast is a stroke that is very much about timing. My stroke was much better suited to 200m than 50m - 50s my timing nearly always felt a little off. I remember at one meet, my times for the 50, 100m and 200 breast were all the same for my 50 and 100 splits. Ie, my 50 split in the 200 was in the same vicinity as my 50 sprint (not including 100ths of a second).

Nowadays, I don't do any breaststroke kick as my knees get ruined if I try. Really good hip flexibility helps with your kick also.

Been working on keeping my knees together in breaststroke to reduce drag.

---

___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)