The last two days I have been doubling up swim/run sessions. For some reason (I felt like it, probably) in the pool I threw in 100m of breast stroke to start my warm up which I don’t normally do. I found that the run afterwards was painful, only on my left leg. - the first day it was ok and faded as the run went on, but today I couldn’t finish the run - my left knee felt like it couldn’t take my weight. I’ve never had any problem with knees before throughout training, and am slightly concerned about it.
Could I have developed shin splints in just two runs from never having felt any discomfort before, and only in one leg? Or do people think it is more likely the breaststroke?
My brother was a national level breastroke swimmer who later joined the army. On their routine runs he developed a problem where by one of his legs just gave out and he literally collapsed, however after a short rest he could start running again. The army doctor said he had a problem with his knees but didn’t know what it was. A doctor who was attached to our swimming club and had been involved in the sport internationally for many years said it was ‘breastrokers knee’. We’d never heard of it and certainly at the time it wasn’t an ‘official’ diagnosis (the army doctor wouldn’t accept it because it wasn’t official) but we started asking around and discovered that it was quite common. Sadly, the problem continued and my brother was discharged from the army on medical grounds.
This may not be the problem you have, but it sounds so similar that I would stay away from breastroke.
Same problem here. I threw in just a few lengths of Breast and now I feel like I’ve got tendinitis in my left knee, near the joint line especially lateral. Sucks.
The obvious solution is to not do breast stroke. You don’t need that for tri training. You’ve probably managed to inflame your tendons. If the pain persists you should see an orthopedist. But in the mean time down a bunch of motrin and use heat/ice on your knees.
I tore my ACL about 2 years ago and after doing rehab and talking to a surgeon I decided not to have it fixed for the time being. It never bothers me in training or racing except for doing the breast stroke.
I’ll put this out there as a warning to everyone on this thread, not just you:
Swimming breaststroke is really not something that should be practiced by triathletes. Not only does it pretty much fail to build any sort of applicable fitness towards triathlon swimming, it also poses a serious risk for knee injuries. This is especially true for people who haven’t ever really had much training in proper breaststroke form.
From my experience, triathletes often tend to be on the edge in terms of knee joint health and stability. Breaststroke can cause significant knee problems even in advanced swimmers. Combine the two, and it can be a recipe for disaster.
I swam breaststroke competitively in high school, but since I have started racing triathlons, I rarely ever do any breaststroke in the pool. I really noticed changes in my knees, both when I started breaststroke, and after I stopped racing breaststroke. It really forces your knees to move in a somewhat unnatural manner, which takes some training to fully adapt to.
Moral of the story: Your problem may not be caused by the breaststroke at all, but I would still recommend cutting back on it, since it really has no benefits for your purposes, and could cause significant damage.
x2 on the breaststroke is not really something triathletes need to do.
Freestyle is what you’ll be racing and backstroke is the best stroke to loosen up after / counteract freestyle. When I’m training I’ll generally throw in 25 or 50m of backstroke every 400m or so. It helps open up your chest and loosen your shoulders.
If you really want to do breaststroke (which is inherently not great on your knees), problems can arise more quickly if you are (a) kicking out rather than kicking around (b) starting the kick to hard (you should start relatively slowly and accelerate through your kick).
Thanks to everyone for the replies - really helpful. I only used it because I’m not the most awake at 6:30am in the pool and it is the “simple” one to wake up with for a couple of laps. Will stop now though. Resting up today, will give it another day of just swimming (crawl/back only this time) tomorrow, and then will see how it is. Never had any history of knee trouble at all, so hoping this will just vanish as quickly as it appeared.
I had been primarily running all month and when I swam this month, found that I had trouble with breaststroke kick - it is in a different plane than your freestyle, bike, and run strokes. Lateral movement sucks
Either ease into it, make SURE you are doing it correctly, or just don’t do it. I disagree with other posters about breaststroke having no benefit for triathletes; it is good to be able to swim all strokes and you can build swim fitness in other strokes just as well as you can freestyle. You all are just lazy and perplexed by the other three strokes
‘Breaststroker’s knee’ is an injury that top breaststroke swimmers will deal with often; Kurt Grote in Gold in the Water for instance — you likely don’t have this, you just are kicking wrong or your leg muscles aren’t used to it.
I have a reconstructed ACL that isn’t even healed fully yet and I’ll do some minor breaststroke just for the hell of it. But the philosopher is right: you guys have no business doing breaststroke anyway.
I agree with this and have had the exact same experience. A few times I have noticed problems with my knee directly proportionate to doing breaststroke. Sometimes in masters I feel peer pressure to do the IM’s but I sub in dolphin kick.
I disagree with other posters about breaststroke having no benefit for triathletes; it is good to be able to swim all strokes and you can build swim fitness in other strokes just as well as you can freestyle. You all are just lazy and perplexed by the other three strokes
As a former IMer, I think it’s easy to get into this habit of switching up your strokes. I agree that it’s good to do some cross stroke training (and I really like to do a lot of fly) but you can get your shoulders into the habit of doing different movements and thereby making distance free kind of miserable. Okay, i really think that distance freestyle is always miserable, I have to admit. But you can pretty much ignore breaststroke and still get a solid swimming workout.
If you aren’t a former competitive swimmer, you probably think that breaststroke is the easiest to do. Breaststroke is the hardest, followed by fly and free. Swimmers think backstroke is easiest (you can breathe all the time!)
I would say that anyone who thinks breaststroke is easy, is not swimming it correctly. The timing alone in that stroke makes it harder than fly.
I think that one of the good things with other strokes is it will develop shoulder muscles better. Pure freestylists wind up with so many overuse injuries that can be avoided by (1) good mechanics (2) swimming other strokes and (3) weight routines to correct imbalances (as needed. I have protracted shoulders, which I’ve been fixing with a baby-weights routine! is helping).
I also think you get a better feel of the water swimming different strokes and learning different pull phases and sculling patterns and catches - the catch on the short axis strokes, totally different from the long axis ones, and even backstroke’s catch has a different feel than freestyle. There’s this HUGE kinesthetic awareness you can get swimming other stuff.
My favorite breaststroke drill is two kick cycles per every pull. You can feel the catch SO well after that. Good one for 200 breaststrokers…
My roommate is a 2:07 200 flyer and my brother (was) a 100 breaststroker so I’m partial to breaststroke from the sheer joy it was for me to train with him as we grew up, and to see him race when I was in college and he was in HS.
I had been primarily running all month and when I swam this month, found that I had trouble with breaststroke kick - it is in a different plane than your freestyle, bike, and run strokes. Lateral movement sucks
Either ease into it, make SURE you are doing it correctly, or just don’t do it. I disagree with other posters about breaststroke having no benefit for triathletes; it is good to be able to swim all strokes and you can build swim fitness in other strokes just as well as you can freestyle. You all are just lazy and perplexed by the other three strokes
‘Breaststroker’s knee’ is an injury that top breaststroke swimmers will deal with often; Kurt Grote in Gold in the Water for instance — you likely don’t have this, you just are kicking wrong or your leg muscles aren’t used to it.
I agree, there can be some benefits to doing mixing it up and doing some breaststroke. Trust me, I was an IM and breaststroke swimmer, so I like getting variety in my training. My main point was just that breaststroke takes time and skill to learn properly, and triathletes (who are notoriously bad swimmers ;-)) typically face more risk than gain in swimming breaststroke.
If anyone is intent on swimming breaststroke, be sure to ease into it gradually, and make sure it is being done properly.
What I’m really trying to say is that there aren’t a lot of swimmers on this forum and if they think they should be doing breaststroke then that’s not correct (as you pointed out.) Yeah, doing different strokes is good, but most of these triathletes aren’t going to do enough swimming to warrant breaststroke everyday–especially if they are hurting themselves while doing it (which is kinda sad…) I think breaststroke is good practice for doing the lift-your-head-up-to-find-the-buoy-and-figure-out-who-keeps-kicking-you stroke during the swim portion of the tri. My favorite drill is to lie on my back and do the breast kick. I like my knees to be exactly balanced and that drill keeps me going.
I guess 2:07 is good for girls swimming? I think guys are an embarrassment if they can’t go under 1:55 in regular season…and if you don’t push under 1:50 you aren’t going to score any points against any decent teams.
I guess 2:07 is good for girls swimming? I think guys are an embarrassment if they can’t go under 1:55 in regular season…and if you don’t push under 1:50 you aren’t going to score any points against any decent teams.
I had this problem. I went to a PT, he diagnosed me with a very tight gracilus(a tendon on the inner thigh) It was pulling on the inside of the knee. When
I whipped my legs in the breaststroke (probably incorrectly)it pulled violently where the gracilus connected. Then later after say 2 miles of my run I would have to stop and rub my knee for awhile. He gave me some stretches for my inner thighs targeting the gracilus. It allows me to swim a little breaststroke if I want to do some IMs. But
if I slack off on the stretching it comes back. Google this PES ANSERINUS BURSITUS many here would do well to learn about it. PTs?
Hi all,
I’ve dealt with this problem several times. Surprisingly doing a few IT band stretches post warmup should alleviate the pain associated with the breast-stroke kick. I found that the ITband stretches loosened up my knee(s) before attempting this kick.
Yours in sport, Matt
I think some of my knee issues that started in HS had to due with trying to do breaststroke kick in practice (and I’m glad I’m not the only person to have had knee issues related to swimming). One suggestion I was given, is to do fly kick instead of breaststroke kick, when doing breaststroke (arm motion stays the same). That way, you get the benefit of helping to develop your all-around swimming ability (which will help your swim times), and lets you get the benefits of breaststroke, which at least for me, keeps my shoulders nice and loose in spots that tend to tighten up too much.
I recently saw a respected Sports Med Specialist in the Detroit area who diagnosed me with Patellafemoral Syndrome due to an imbalance caused by having large quads. He said that then number one thing to stay away from was breaststroke kick during swim training, followed by going down past a 45 degree angle while lifting legs, and riding with a seat too low. He said that basic leg exercises coupled with the above advice will make any effects associated with PFS go away over time.
