Breaststroke - Dave Denniston

Important Note to the Viewer

LESSONS: 12 VIDEOS

Eyes Down Under

When Dave wants to get faster, he doesn’t necessarily train harder… he trains with more focus. He thinks about things he can do to get faster – that will help him take full advantage of the kick and pull he works so hard train. One of the things he thinks about…his eyes. When most people think of head or eye position, they usually focus on what’s happening above the water. Dave, however, concentrates on keeping his eyes down under water. Watch what this does for his glide. You’ll notice in this clip that Dave begins his pull with his eyes still focused on the bottom. This guarantees that he’s in streamline position when he begins his pull, and that he gets the most out of each pull possible. When we watch many age-group swimmers, we notice the eyes coming up so they see where they’re going. This causes the head to come out of the streamline position, causing drag, and slowing the swimmer down. Here we see just how tight a streamline position Dave gets into on each stroke. When viewed from the front, you can see how he gets his body to cut through one little hole in the water. Trying too hard sometimes causes the head to go too deep in the water. Experiment until you find the head and eye position that makes you feel like you’re flying through the water with little or no effort as you glide. When Dave is really thinking about this part of his stroke, watch how long he keeps his head in this position during the out-sweep of the arms. Be patient…and try not to move your head at all. Here are some fun things to try when you have a little free time in the pool. Underwater Slinky with a Mini Pull allows you to get down the pool without moving your head out of the streamline position. Simply add a dolphin kick to your slink movement, and use a short, quick pull out front. The entire time you’re doing this you’ll notice how it’s not necessary to lift or tuck your head at all. Now move on to Underwater Breaststroke. This is simply breaststroke…under water. This is a good drill for learning to keep your head steady and your eyes down. When you do get to the surface, try a few strokes of breaststroke without breathing. Then work in a small breath. Try to make sure your head comes up as little as possible when you finally do take a breath. Remember: eyes down under. Look at the bottom during your glide in breaststroke.

Eyes Down Above

When you swim breaststroke, there are two key things to remember when you breathe: Maintain good body position… and maintain forward momentum. You can accomplish both if you learn to look down when you breathe. Watch Dave’s eyes. He directs them down at the water, almost seeming to watch his hands extend forward. This allows him to maintain good body position. His head remains in line with his back, and this prevents his hips from dropping too deep in the water. To give you an idea of the line that Dave’s body gets into when he breathes, we’ll stop his stroke so you can see how his head, neck, and back are all in line while breathing. Common Errors Many swimmers, either out of instinct or to see where they’re going, look forward. You’ll notice how this creates a hesitation in the stroke, disrupts the natural rhythm, and causes the swimmer to slow down. The most important reason to look down when you breathe is it lets you achieve this straight body line. This guarantees that you won’t drop your hips out of line with the rest of your body. This body position allows you to go faster. It helps your body stay shallow as you extend your arms forward. It helps you maintain forward momentum. Keeping your eyes down above, keeps you from coming up too high during the breath. When you do this correctly, you’ll feel that you’re sneaking just over the surface of the water, rather than coming up so high that you end up crashing down onto the water. Let’s watch Dave take a few strokes at race speed. And watch his eyes. Now watch the same fast breaststroke in slow motion. Notice how Dave lifts his eyes just a little higher. This is instinctual, because no swimmer wants to swallow water, especially when they’re really working. Another good way to focus on keeping your eyes down above, is to use the Underwater Breaststroke you learned in the last segment, and gradually bring it to the surface. Then work in a couple strokes with no breath. Play with this sequence until you feel that your head is stable and that you are keeping your eyes down, both above and below the surface. Remember: eyes down above. Keep looking down when you take your breath on breaststroke.

Reach Full Extension

Coaches are always telling us to reach when we swim. But why is this so important? We can see the answer in Dave’s stroke. Reaching all the way forward at the beginning of each strokes guarantees that you’ll have maximum time, and maximum range, to execute the most effective pull possible. Watch how Dave stretches as far out front as possible to guarantee he’ll get as much out of each pull as he can. Practicing this technique is as easy as adding a bit of glide to each stroke – stretching out as far as you can to prepare for each pull. We also notice an added benefit of reaching full extension: great body position. Think of staying shallow when you extend forward and not diving too deep. From the side we see what happens when you reach full extension and stay shallow. Dave’s body becomes a sleek torpedo. He’ll continue to move forward with little or no effort at all. Common Errors Many swimmers, especially young ones, are so anxious to get to their next pull that they have very limited extension. All their emphasis is put on pulling as hard and as far back and as quickly as possible. This causes more loss of rhythm and adds great resistance to their recovery. As you being to pick up the pace, don’t shorten the stroke. Make the pull happen quicker, but continue to completely extend on each stroke. Here you’ll notice that even though Dave is starting to swim faster, he reaches FULL extension on each stroke. From under water, we see that Dave continues to extend his hands completely out front, being patient enough not to rush into the next pull or shorten his stroke. As the glide begins to disappear, we’ll notice that Dave still reaches full extension. Maintaining full extension allows you to go faster. Continue to focus on reaching full extension, even as you introduce more rhythm into the stroke. As Dave increases the tempo to sprinting, notice how his hands still reach full extension before he starts to out-sweep and pull. Remember: reach full extension on each stroke.

Finish Your Kick - Dave

In breaststroke, most of our propulsion comes from the kick. If the way to maximize your pull is to reach full extension, the way to maximize your kick is to finish each kick. When you focus on finishing each kick, you guarantee that your feet do not create added drag to slow you down. Watch Dave’s legs stay together and follow right behind his body once they’ve finished each kick. Another advantage is that your legs are in a better position to recover when you’re ready to set up the next kick. Dave completes his kick, then his legs are drawn up in a more narrow position to initiate the next kick. If you finish each kick, you’ll also make sure you get maximum time and maximum range to execute the most powerful kick possible. Think of completing the kick, then seeing how streamlined you can make your body, from fingertips to toes. Then see how far you travel on each stroke…and how much more effective each kick can be. Common Errors So many swimmers ignore the end of the kick, causing the feet to flop around, creating resistance, losing power, and making it more likely to cause disqualification by creating a dolphin or flutter kick. As Dave speeds up, notice how he virtually SLAMS his feet together and squeezes all the water from between his legs. As we slow this down a bit, it’s easy to see how perfect and precisely he finishes each kick. DON’T let your legs drift together. Finish each kick with authority. Don’t forget your toes! Keep them pointed from the instant your feet slam together…until the instant they break apart to get ready for the next kick. Even as you start to swim faster, keep your feet in the most streamlined position possible until it’s time for the next kick. A good way to practice this is by doing underwater breaststroke kick. Get your body into a streamlined position, and kick breaststroke nice and deep in the pool. Make sure you’re not recovering your legs too wide, and watch the torpedo-like shape your entire body gets in when you finish your kick completely. Stay close to the bottom. This way, you’ll make sure you don’t bring your knees up too high, and it will be easy for you to watch the tiles. If you see the tiles clearly, it means you’ve stopped, and that you’ve lost your streamline…or brought your knees up too high, or too far apart. Try to keep the tiles blurry as you fly past them. Remember: finish each kick. Squeeze all the water from between your legs.

Use a Mini Pull

Many swimmers think that the breaststroke pull should be a big, powerful movement. Sometimes, the bigger the pull, the less effective it is. Something that Dave works on is called a mini pull. He reduces how wide he sends his hands, and keeps his elbows far out front. This keeps resistance and drag to a minimum as he recovers his hands, and helps him focus on hand speed. Common Errors Many swimmers try to get as much as possible out of each pull. They pull too wide and too far back because they like the feeling of power. Pulling too far back, though, creates so much resistance in the recovery that the pull doesn’t have much effect. When Dave is thinking about keeping his pull small, he tries to turn his hands in sooner to start catching the water. You’ll see that he barely gets his hands outside his elbows before he initiates the catch. You’ll notice that Dave’s pull is narrow AND that it happens out front. He doesn’t pull back toward his hips. Try to keep your elbows in front of your shoulders. This kind of quick, narrow, mini pull helps you get your hands back out front more quickly, with less drag created by the arms. When you start to pick up the pace, try not to pull too wide, or too hard. Keep your pull compact, and quick. In doing this, you’ll find that the in-sweep catches the water at a good sculling angle and generates great hand speed forward. As the pace continues to build, keep fighting the instinct to pull harder. Allow your body to set up the rhythm, and keep the hands moving quickly. As Dave changes his pace, watch how he swims from slow to fast, with his hand pattern remaining consistent. Picking up the pace just a little. And faster still. Now watch this consistency side by side. Dave makes sure that what he practices SLOW, is something he uses when he swims fast. Remember to keep your pull small and compact, and your hands quick. Here are two drills you can do to help you think about your mini pull. Underwater Breaststroke Pull with Dolphin Kick. Keep the pull narrow and quick. Feel any drag you create by pulling back too far. Keep the hands in rhythm with the body movement. From this angle we see just how little Dave does with his arms – but how effective this mini-pull can be. It’s not how hard you pull, it’s how fast you can reach full extension with your body. Move on to Underwater Breaststroke with a Full Pull and Kick. You’ll feel some added resistance when recovering the arms. Be aware of this resistance when you’re swimming full stroke, and make sure to get your hands back out front as quickly as possible. Remember: use a mini pull. Keep your pull small, compact, and quick.

Send It Forward - Davo

As you reach full extension with your body, make sure you aim your hands forward, toward the wall at the other end, not at the bottom. As you can see here, even when the hands are aimed directly forward, the body will still settle, or sink a little, during the extension. Aiming the hands down will cause the body to go too deep. Send them forward, not down. Common Errors Some swimmers spend too much time going up and down rather than going forward. Going too deep means you’ll only have farther to climb back up to air. Don’t forget: Your goal is to get to the other end. Don’t make the pool longer by directing your energy down. When you first start to practice this, a simple thing to remember is to extend your hands as close to the surface of the water as possible. Stay as shallow as you can. Another advantage of landing forward and staying shallow, is you’ll be ready to take the next stroke without having to climb back up to the surface. As Dave picks up the pace just a bit, notice how he actually uses his hands to direct all his energy in a straight line forward down the pool. As he extends forward, his body settles below his hands, then begins to rebound back up because he’s extended his hands above his chest. While keeping your eyes down, see if you can see your hands extend out in front of you, rather than dive back down into the water. The faster Dave goes, the more shallow he becomes. He’s focused on moving forward and maintaining rhythm, not on moving up and down and pulling harder. As we watch Dave swim at race pace, you’ll see how close his hands stay to the surface on his extension forward. As he swims away, we can also see how he uses his back and shoulders to throw his energy forward as he extends. Watching someone who is as fast as Dave is, we start to understand that there isn’t any time to go up and down. If you want to go under 53 seconds for the 100-yard breaststroke, you can’t waste time and energy going up and down. Send it forward.

Breaststroke with Rhythm

For the final section of the video, we feel there’s no better way to learn than just to watch Dave swim. Try to pick out the things we focused on. Are his eyes down when he’s under? Are his eyes down when he’s above? Does he finish each kick? Is his pull big and wide, or is it mini and compact? And does he direct all of his energy forward…or down? Try to pick out the things he does right…or try to find the things that even Dave could do better. Even the best swimmers try to improve…so they can swim even faster.

BONUS - Turns

Underwater Breaststroke Drill

Credits

This is the Beginning Now it’s up to you go add focus to your training! Go Swim Breaststroke Starring Dave Denniston Concept & Script Glenn Mills Barbara Hummel Dave Denniston Script Editing Barbara Hummel Production & Filming Glenn Mills Post-Production & Film Editing Glenn Mills Swimming Back and Forth Dave Denniston Special thanks to Arundel Olympic Swim Center, Annapolis, MD What clear water they gave us!!! Watch for more products and swim-camp info at: www.goswim.tv Go Swim Breaststroke with Dave Denniston Copyright © 2003 by Go Swim Productions, LLC All rights reserved.

How to Get the Most from this Video

The best way for you to improve as a swimmer is to listen to your coach. However, even the best coach can’t watch every swimmer all the time, so your success will depend on your attention to detail. This video will give you six specific things to think about during the course of your training. It is best not to think about all of them at the same time, but rather, focus on one specific thing each day. These techniques should be in addition to what your coach is asking you to do, not in place of. All great swimmers will tell you: Don’t just do what’s asked of you. Always do just a little bit more. Now let’s watch how United States World Championship Team Member Dave Denniston applies these techniques in his swimming.