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Breaststroke - Timing the Kick

Posted by Glenn Mills on Dec 09, 2008 09:34AM (16,046 views)

A great coach recently said that the biggest problem with breaststroke is "the kick." This confirms our belief that working on when and how you initiate the kick is a much bigger concern than most people think.

- Great Breaststroke Drills with Olympian Staciana Stitts & NCAA Champ Dave Denniston

Why Do It:
Learning how to time the kick, or how to initiate the kick in breaststroke can help create a more efficient and ultimately faster breaststroke.

How to Do It:
1. Our goal here is to create a stroke in which the legs are drawn forward by the hips... which are drawn forward by the arms. With this in mind, as you step through these various drills, two focus points are consistent: 1) Allow the legs to stay straight for as long as possible into the pull, and... 2) make sure your hands are all the way extended when the you initiate the kick.
2. Start by swimming easy breaststroke. Then, when you start your pull, relax your legs so that they "float" forward, rather than get tucked forward.
3. A little tougher approach is to tie yourself up to a stretch cord and swim to the other end. First do a small dolphin kick so that your legs can stay a bit straighter while you pull. Then add a small breaststroke kick, keeping your legs straight and back BEHIND you for as long as you can before you set up for the kick. This later kick will also help you recover a bit smaller (less resistance).
4. Another "fun" way to practice this is to use paddles, snorkel, and parachute. The goal here is to finish the recovery of the hands before the dolphin kick comes in. The snorkel and slowness of forward movement allows you time to focus on this timing.
5. The Alpha Fin is a great tool for allowing your legs to "float" into the kick. They keep the feet high and behind the body. The focus, again, is to finish the extension of the hands before initiating the dolphin kick.
6. Finish with some higher-speed breaststroke, focusing on how you draw your legs up, rather than tuck them up for the kick.

How to Do It Really Well (the Fine Points):
If you go through all the steps we just talked about, you've covered all the fine points. So practice really well... and keep practicing.

breaststroke, fins, dolphin, kick

Responses

Leafdapple	Responded Mar 15, 2009 01:57AM Nice
Eligijus	Responded May 17, 2009 11:44AM hm, I'm a little bit confused. The video says: make sure your hands are all the way extended when the you initiate the kick. But my coach says that you must do the kick at the same time as you do the hands throw. Which technique is better ad why?
Barbara Hummel	Responded May 17, 2009 12:25PM Hi, Eligijus. Thanks for joining the forum. The idea is that you want the front end of your body to be as narrow and streamlined as possible when you deliver the kick -- so that you can maximize the power of the kick. If your elbows are bent and your hands are still recovering when you deliver the kick, they create resistance and this keeps you from getting everything possible out of the kick. "Narrow and streamlined" doesn't mean you have to get into a tight streamline with hands locked -- as if you were pushing off the wall. It means getting the arms extended with thumbs touching or near each other. Hope that helps.
Eligijus	Responded May 17, 2009 04:01PM That really helped me to understand. Thank you very much
Paul	Responded Jul 28, 2009 08:25PM Glenn, I was always under the impression that the kick was supposed to drive you into streamline but this drill seems to indicate that the kick shouldn't start until the hands have fully recovered. Hmmm. Need to delve into this a little more.
camy	Responded Sep 30, 2009 11:58AM Barbara, you wrote that arms are extended with thumbs touching. Some say that hands shouldn't touch (shoulders width). Some others say 'with pinkies touching'. Are there any differences between palms down and 'offering' ?
Barbara Hummel	Responded Sep 30, 2009 12:51PM I think it comes down to how a swimmer is built... especially in the shoulder area. For me, it feels very uncomfortable to ride/glide with my palms together or facing up, but for other swimmers this feels very natural. Thumbs touching is the way I do it, but that's just me. The point is that you want to minimize resistance on the front end and a swimmer should do this in the most effective way FOR THEM.
Glenn Mills	Responded Sep 30, 2009 01:58PM @Paul. yeah... things have changed. The arms should pretty much be DONE the extension prior to the kick coming in.
SuperRunt	Responded Nov 19, 2009 04:30PM Thanx guys, this is great! I had been thinking a lot about this lately, so I'll definitely do some of these drills.
JORGE	Responded Sep 02, 2010 02:02PM A consciência corporal do gesto desportivo foi melhor entendido.
Sean	Responded Sep 21, 2010 06:58PM I was just doing the 'wave style' last night and it kicks ass! I keep my hands tight and right on top of left as if you're diving in off the starting blocks because it's the same principles as diving into the water. You want your feet to enter the water at exactly the same spot your hands just broke the water at. So makes much more sense to keep the hands as close aerodynamically to your head as possible. Wave style = Streamline-kick (hold streamline for a second) and pull with a quick breath at the top of the pull and repeat. Yesterday was my first time switching from the 'old school' conventional breaststroke and I was literally flying through the water. Makes way more sense to use your legs during the streamline underwater and being able to start in a streamline position during a race makes it legal. Now I've gotta incorporate a dolphin kick to my starts! I do have an interesting question about the rules though. From what I understand you're allowed to do one dolphin kick at the start while your body downward towards the bottom of the pool. According to rules you have to breath once for every kick and pull. What I'm wondering is this... Can you legally jump off the starting block, streamline-dolphin kick and then go into the 'wave style' breaststroke? So to try to say that clearer...(Startblock dive, streamline to downward dolphin kick... then breaststroke kick, glide and pull. Is that a legal start??? I know it's a 'grey area' according to what I've read, but unless the rulebook says I can't specifically, I'm going to. I don't really care how unorthodox it is - just if it's written somewhere that I can't specifically do this.

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Breaststroke - Timing the Kick

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