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This is Brenton Rickard, world medallist in the one hundred and two hundred breaststroke demonstrating
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technique. One of the key things I look for is face position where his hands and
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feet are together in a straight line. It's important in breaststroke when
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swimming it, that you get great distance per stroke. Brenton does a lot of
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his work on stroke count, as you look here we don't want too much head
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movement and the body really travels fastest just below the surface, as we
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said we call this the base position.
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In Breaststroke most of the power comes from a combination of the legs and the arms and
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with the arms we're looking at more propellor type sweeping motions rather than
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pull, push, as you have in butterfly, freestyle and backstroke.
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The feet movement is predominantly backwards and together, I think 10 years
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to 15 years ago it was more around and together, but now the modern
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breaststroker is pushing back and together. It's very important to have
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great ankle flexibility and hip and knee joint mobility.
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When breathing in breaststroke we want the swimmer to move with the stroke not
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to have a separate head movement. He comes up with the arm stroke catching
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the water his body neck and back moves, rather than his head bobbing up
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and down to take the breath. It is important to look forward when taking
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this breath without too much head nodding and interference with stroke
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length in front. The modern breaststroker recovers his hands close to the surface.
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A number of the famous breaststrokers bring their hands out of just above
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the surface at race speed, now what we're watching at the moment is fairly easy
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technique but Brenton he is trying to get his hands up just in front of his
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chin and keep them close to the surface as he recovers have them forward to the
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full extension. At the start of the stroke the swimmer presses outwards and
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some of the breaststrokers press a little bit upwards, but it is a wide
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position and then it starts to catch in at that catch position is where the head
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starts to come up for the breath, so the breath is a result of that beginning of
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the in sweeping motion of the stroke.
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This shot here shows that when the kick is completing there is an acceleration
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the feet must come together, by doing this the swimmer is exacting most power
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from the kicking motion. A number of swimmers we see in breaststroke cut their kick
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short and do not bring the legs together. I think this causes great inefficiency.
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00:03:08,240 --> 00:03:14,230 This underwater shot shows the arm stroke again once again full extension then an
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outward sweep to catch the water, and then an inward sweep then forward for recovery.
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This underwater shot shows how the feet
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accelerate and come together and the arc of the backward motion is quite narrow.
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The best breaststrokers are doing this it appears and getting a more of a
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backward and together motion rather than outward and around together motion as
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they were say 15-20 years ago. This shot shows full extension at the front and
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also the knees trying to keep them in line with the body rather than drop
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them underneath the hips. In breaststroke predominate power I believe comes from
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the hip movement and once we connect with the core through our arms it is
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important that this is the generating power. Looking at all good breaststrokers
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I feel that you need to have your hips up near the surfaces as in these shots
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showing Brenton side on.
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After the initial extension their hands press outwards and catching the water
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the wide position which is outside the shoulder. At that position the in sweep
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begins and this is the most propulsive part of the breaststroke. When the in
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sweep is occurring the head is coming up to breathe, and after the breath is taken it
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is important that the swimmer recovers the hands forward because if this is a
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non propulsive phase of the stroke and it's important to get the hands back and
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forward to the base or frontal position. Breaststroke is one of those strokes where
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I feel it's easy to do the stroke poorly but to do it correctly is extremely
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difficult. When teaching breaststroke or developing an athlete to compete at
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higher levels I think it's very important that we focus on doing the
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stroke well, maybe doing many many drills with it rather than doing lots of it
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poorly. Breast stroke can be swam by many
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people poorly, but by very very few well.
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