The Breaststroke Lane

[Jeff Commings]

The S&T judge (who unfortunately was also doubling as the deck ref) said I took "two complete breaststroke stroke cycles underwater before surfacing" and he wrote "pull, kick, pull, kick." I can guarantee you I did not take 2 breaststroke cycles underwater; I'm not an 8 & Under. I think he must have confused by my scull hands out, dolphin kick, pull down and kick up. I went very far underwater, so he probably assumed something was wrong. Had I actually done something wrong (flutter kicked to the surfaced, been nailed for undulation looking like a second dolphin kick), I wouldn't have said a word. But I was fairly steamed on principle; there is simply no way I did what he described and wrote up in the DQ. He was dead wrong. And he also did not write to the rule on his DQ slip.

I've tried doing what Wolfy describes on my pull outs, but I still end up way too deep. I guess I shouldn't angle down at all since my dolphin kick leaves me too deep.

He might have been referring to something a lot of people do when they are too deep on their pullouts.

If you are too deep after your breaststroke kick after your pullout, sometimes you start your outsweep while you are too deep, and if you start your insweep before your head breaks the surface, you will get disqualified:

Form the rule book:
After the start and after each turn, the swimmer may take one arm stroke completely back to the legs. The head must break the surface of the water before the hands turn inward at the widest part of the second stroke.

[Ahelee Sue Osborn]

He might have been referring to something a lot of people do when they are too deep on their pullouts.

If you are too deep after your breaststroke kick after your pullout, sometimes you start your outsweep while you are too deep, and if you start your insweep before your head breaks the surface, you will get disqualified:

Form the rule book:
After the start and after each turn, the swimmer may take one arm stroke completely back to the legs. The head must break the surface of the water before the hands turn inward at the widest part of the second stroke.

I don't know what Fort's pullout looked like since I wasn't there and underwater looking at it... but -

Jeff - this is a GREAT rule for everyone to keep in mind. Very easy to be in a rush to get going fast and start pulling out for the stroke too soon.

Fort, I am wondering if your head is dipped down in the brute force of your dolphin kick. This is hard to see or even feel if you aren't aware of it or watching from the side underwater.

Your head has to be straight on your spine as you pull-down.
I like to think there is a very subtle feeling of a lift of the chest as you are surfacing - but the head stays locked straight on the spine.

Watch the fast breaststrokers surface for the first stroke/breath. Chin is nicely tucked in...

I'm not a breaststoker - but I did just drop over a second off my 100 breast time this weekend.
Zero training for it - just a lot of chatting here about technique!
Awareness counts. Thanks guys.

[ande]

thanks jeff, good to know

Form the rule book:
The head must break the surface of the water before the hands turn inward at the widest part of the second stroke.

[Karen Duggan]

the stroke is spelled: b-r-e-a-s-t-s-t-r-o-k-e

I have seen:
beaststroke (it's really not that beastly!)
beststroke (debatable)
breastroke

any other???

[hofffam]

I swam 2 breaststroke events this weekends and was way too deep on all my pullouts. How do I fix this? My push off angle must be all wrong ... ??

I did PR my 50 breast, but literally had to float to the top on the first 25, which cause me to jerk my head up to get to the surface.

I also got the most bogus DQ on my 100 evil. It makes me leery to swim it again.

One thing I find is that most competition pools are deeper than my practice pool. So I am often a bit too deep racing since I calibrate my trajectory based at least partly on the bottom of the pool.

You may also have a good trajectory, but with a racing suit on and the adrenaline of racing it simply carries you farther and deeper than you want.

[The Fortress]

He might have been referring to something a lot of people do when they are too deep on their pullouts.

If you are too deep after your breaststroke kick after your pullout, sometimes you start your outsweep while you are too deep, and if you start your insweep before your head breaks the surface, you will get disqualified:

Form the rule book:
After the start and after each turn, the swimmer may take one arm stroke completely back to the legs. The head must break the surface of the water before the hands turn inward at the widest part of the second stroke.

Jeff,

I'm a stroke & turn judge, so I'm aware of the wording of the rule. I specifically asked him if this is what he meant to call. He said no. He said he saw me do 2 breaststroke kicks and that is flat out BS and wrong. It was a bad call.

[Karen Duggan]

Blame it on the red suit.
He was so distracted by your athleticism and beauty, his eyes temporarily glazed over, thus the double pulldown.

[The Fortress]

Blame it on the red suit.
He was so distracted by your athleticism and beauty, his eyes temporarily glazed over, thus the double pulldown.

lol. I was wearing my black B70 all day. Saving my Fred Bousquet suit for Nats.

[The Fortress]

I
Fort, I am wondering if your head is dipped down in the brute force of your dolphin kick. This is hard to see or even feel if you aren't aware of it or watching from the side underwater.

Your head has to be straight on your spine as you pull-down.
I like to think there is a very subtle feeling of a lift of the chest as you are surfacing - but the head stays locked straight on the spine.

I think you may be right. I will focus on this when I swim tomorrow. Thx.

And congrats on your 100 breast PB.

[jroddin]

I'm a stroke & turn judge, so I'm aware of the wording of the rule. I specifically asked him if this is what he meant to call. He said no. He said he saw me do 2 breaststroke kicks and that is flat out BS and wrong. It was a bad call.

First, I'll say a DQ can put quite a damper on a meet (unless you are Wally - when he gets DQd he just shrugs his shoulders and says it makes up for the times when he didn't get caught!).

I agree you didn't take 2 full pulls and 2 full kicks. But would it have made you feel any better if he responded to your question with, "you are right - you only took one kick but you took two pulls so the DQ still stands." I'm not sure I understand what your intention was with protesting the wording on the DQ slip.

Whether you did an illegal pullout or not, it was certainly suspicious to go almost to the (second) flags with your pullout so that's probably a lesson learned to not draw that kind of attention in the future. I'm sorry about the DQ but glad it didn't ruin your meet.

Jeff

[The Fortress]

First, I'll say a DQ can put quite a damper on a meet (unless you are Wally - when he gets DQd he just shrugs his shoulders and says it makes up for the times when he didn't get caught!).

I agree you didn't take 2 full pulls and 2 full kicks. But would it have made you feel any better if he responded to your question with, "you are right - you only took one kick but you took two pulls so the DQ still stands." I'm not sure I understand what your intention was with protesting the wording on the DQ slip.

Whether you did an illegal pullout or not, it was certainly suspicious to go almost to the (second) flags with your pullout so that's probably a lesson learned to not draw that kind of attention in the future. I'm sorry about the DQ but glad it didn't ruin your meet.

Jeff

I did not do an illegal pullout. And I didn't take 2 pulls either. I was up by the widest part of the second pull. What's wrong with long pullouts anyway? Plus, when I grilled him, he said it was on the second length, not the first. I didn't make it to the second set of flags on the second length. I'm not changing my pullout b/c of a bad DQ call, so no lesson learned. I will persevere; however, I will try to eliminate the depth of the pullout and the dead spots.

Officials are supposed to write DQs to the wording of the rules. The meet ref could have overturned the DQ on this basis if he was inclined to. I didn't expect him to however.

And, no it didn't ruin my meet.

You're talking about Wally? The guy who at Y Nats was DQ'd on the 200 breast, said "are you f-ing kidding me?!" and was ejected from the rest of the meet after his first event? lol Neill told me he usually gets the one handed deeks. But he has those lightening fast evil turns that I don't have.

[Allen Stark]

Fort,reading how you described your pullout on your blog I wonder if the ref saw your out scull you did to make the Dolphin legal and counted it as the first pull,the dolphin as the firs kick,then the pulldown as the second pull and the frog kick as the second kick.He would still be wrong,but it would be logical.
That got me wondering:question to you turn judges,if you are going to dolphin before the pulldown the hands must start moving before the dolphin kick,but then they stop during the kick,so could this slight outsweep accurately be considered a separate pull?

[ElaineK]

Thanks.It's going to be fun.
Let me know what heat you are in so I can watch.

Uh, well, hmmmm... Do a "Swimmer Lookup" under "Krugman" and you will see how bad it really is! You'll find me in the outside lane in the slowwwwest heats...

But, I have to start somewhere, right? I just joined in February and had not competed for 31 years, until my first Masters meet in March. I have a long way to go to get anywhere near my 1:19.6 PB for the 100 yd. breaststroke, in high school!

I can't pass up Nationals, though; it's only 45 minutes away from my house! And, it will be FUN!

So, Allen, I appreciate your interest to watch my races, but I can't guarantee it will be a pretty sight!

[pwolf66]

I'm not sure I understand what your intention was with protesting the wording on the DQ slip.

Jeff,

The responsibility of the official who writes up the disqualification, be it the Stroke and Turn or the Referee is to 'write to the rule'. There should be no ambiguities with regards to what rule the swimmer failed to adhere to. And to make it clear, *I* was the one who suggested to take a look a the DQ slip and *I* was the one who viewed the write up as ambiguous as it relates to the breaststroke stroke rules. If you have a problem with that, please take it up with me and we can further discuss the rules and how they are intended to be applied.

[ElaineK]

hey Elaine-iaK,

thank you for your kind words about Swim Faster Faster.
The tips work, they've worked for many who tried & applied them. They've also worked for me, I'm my own guinea pig, they've helped me swim faster now than I did 5 years ago. Some provide instant gratification with instant improvement, (especially for beginners & rebeginners, those who are back after a long hiatus) some take a while, but they work.

I hope to turn them into a book. I decided to put the info on the web, so folks could use it, rather than just let it sit on my hard drive for just me & the few I talk to.

I want you to swim faster faster, even breastrokers.

Ande

Well, I suggested in the past that you write a book and I still hope you do. I will be your first customer; but I want an autographed copy, OK?

P.S. Breaststroke may be the slowest stroke, but it's mighty! Right Allen???

[The Fortress]

Fort,reading how you described your pullout on your blog I wonder if the ref saw your out scull you did to make the Dolphin legal and counted it as the first pull,the dolphin as the firs kick,then the pulldown as the second pull and the frog kick as the second kick.He would still be wrong,but it would be logical.
That got me wondering:question to you turn judges,if you are going to dolphin before the pulldown the hands must start moving before the dolphin kick,but then they stop during the kick,so could this slight outsweep accurately be considered a separate pull?

No, that wasn't it either. I also specifically asked the S&T/Ref if this was what he was calling. He said no. I think one has to be careful when separating the hands, but I was.

[Karen Duggan]

Leslie- your 2nd pullout was almost to the second flags in a 100 breast?
If you could, would you get someone to video that next time you swim it? I am curious to see this.
Thanks!

[The Fortress]

Leslie- your 2nd pullout was almost to the second flags in a 100 breast?
If you could, would you get someone to video that next time you swim it? I am curious to see this.
Thanks!

No, definitely not. It was my first length with a dive. Someone did video my 50 breast where I did the same thing. I'll put it up on my blog at some point. I'm not sure it was really quite that far though. Maybe more like 18 meters?

[Karen Duggan]

18 meters? That's why you got DQd. The rule is 15 meters

[SwimStud]

OK I watched Leslie's pullout as I had a vested interest in beating her down.
She didn't do anything wrong except for the ugly head pop up that has been done by all breaststrokers at some point...

Dive. Hands parted SDK. Pulldown, slow hand recovery to streamline and kick...then the jerked up head.

From the block side of the pool it looked fine...possibly Les could have not broken the surface before the insweep, but that is not what was said, and only the bare tip of the head needs to break not the face. Leslie threw her head up to avoid that and it was noticeable.

Her pullout was wicked long and the one off the turn not that much shorter.

She got ripped off and 1st, 2nd WR, NR, ZR or DFL. It was the wrong call. Leslie has no choice but to accept it. Of course it's one of about 3 events that nobody taped.