Really good swim,now you must embrace your inner frog.Originally Posted by jaadams1
Look at me! A butterflyer/distance guy making an appearance in the Breaststroke Lane of all places!!
Video of 100 Breast from the Inland NW Champs Meet (I'm in lane 4)
YouTube - 3-26-11 100 Breast.mp4
Critique away!! (I nearly had a lifetime best from age group days)
I did notice a couple of things though.Your first and 3rd turns were too shallow on the pullouts.The water above you should be smooth until your head comes up.Also it appears that you are overlapping your pull with your kick instead of finishing your kick before you pull.
I can't be sure from this angle,but your pull appears very narrow.That is not necessarily a bad thing,but from your fly swims I'd think you would want to maximize the thrust you get from your pull.I doubt your fly pull is that narrow.
All in all though a very good swim.
"To strive,to seek,to find,and not to yield" Tennyson
Allen
Hey, James! Welcome to our world!!Look at me! A butterflyer/distance guy making an appearance in the Breaststroke Lane of all places!!
Video of 100 Breast from the Inland NW Champs Meet (I'm in lane 4)
YouTube - 3-26-11 100 Breast.mp4
Critique away!! (I nearly had a lifetime best from age group days)So, how does it feel to be a frog?
http://ElaineiaKsTravels.wordpress.com
~ Believing in your dreams can be far more rewarding than living by your limitations ~Karla Peterson
Honestly, I'd rather be a butterfly.Hey, James! Welcome to our world!!
Thanks Allen, I'll have to play with my stroke a little to figure it out if its narrow...I don't have the leg kick to drive myself forward like most of the frogs out there, that is why I have made my pullouts as good as possible, so as to "swim" less. I thought I actually looked like a breaststroker in this video...driving forward, not stalling at the highest point in the stroke...Really good swim,now you must embrace your inner frog.
I did notice a couple of things though.Your first and 3rd turns were too shallow on the pullouts.The water above you should be smooth until your head comes up.Also it appears that you are overlapping your pull with your kick instead of finishing your kick before you pull.
I can't be sure from this angle,but your pull appears very narrow.That is not necessarily a bad thing,but from your fly swims I'd think you would want to maximize the thrust you get from your pull.I doubt your fly pull is that narrow.
All in all though a very good swim.
Since I plan on swimming all three breast stroke events at Nationals this summer, I thought I'd get serious about it and work on some drills. The breast stroke lane had lots of great suggestions but everything is spread out over 20 pages. It wasn't easy to copy and paste to a workout sheet I could slip into a ziplock bag. I accumulated and condensed the collective wisdom of this thread into a list of drills. Hopefully, I haven't significantly change the intent of any of the drills. If I did, let me know because I don't want to be doing them wrong. I'm bound to have left off a couple drills and unfortunately I didn't write down who suggested which drill. Lots of them come from Allen but there were other contributors.
Fins (or not)
Flutter Kick w/breaststroke
Fly Kick w/ breaststroke
Flutter Kick w/ underwater pulldowns
Fly Kick w/ underwater pulldowns
Flutter Kick w/ underwater breaststroke
Fly Kick w/ underwater breaststroke
General
Y Drill - dolphin kick w/o knee bend; scull hands from "Y" position
BR Kick on back - tilt chin to watch legs. Watch knee width and don't allow them to break surface
Alternate kick - Swim BR; Kick left only, kick right only, kick both, repeat…
Double pull outs - Swim 200 BR w/ double pull outs on each turn
Separation drill - complete kick before stroke, complete stroke before kick
Convert 4 pull/1 kick to 1 pull/4 kicks (200 yds)
2 kicks/1 pull
1 Pull/2 kicks
Increase glide - 75s (25/1 sec glide, 25 2 sec glide, 25 3 sec glide)
Minimize strokes - Focus on glide - try to go 25 yds on pull-out + no strokes
Tennis ball on chin - Swim br w/ tennis ball under chin
2 in. kick - regular br w/ 2 in kick; pull feet back as far a possible, turn feet outward
100 min strokes - 25 @ min strokes + 1, 25 @ min strokes + 2, 25 @ min strokes + 3, 25 @ min strokes + 2
Thumb drill - extend thumbs so that they break surface during initial part of extension on recovery.
Kick
Eggbeater sprint kick - 25s on 45s-60s
Straight leg br kick - Kick only using ankle snap
Undulation
BR Kick s/ arms at side - lift torso, not head to breathe
2 Fly/2 Br - 2 strokes fly, 2 strokes breast, repeat…
Turns
Start in middle of pool, turn an pull out to mid pool. Time.
Michael, for ankle flexibility and stability you could do a series of stretches where you rise up on your toes followed by a squat where you sit deep and try to pull the toes up from the floor. I do 10-15 of these almost daily and I have more ankle flexibility than most people. You can also sit on a stability ball and do a series of toe raises followed by a series of heel raises. Keeps the circulation going in the legs while you're working as well.
Great job, Peter, thanks!This will help me out a lot, too!!
http://ElaineiaKsTravels.wordpress.com
~ Believing in your dreams can be far more rewarding than living by your limitations ~Karla Peterson
Glad they can help! Here's a list of tips. Again, I probably missed some and I'm not sure I've caught the essence of the original poster's intent. But it could make a good "back page" of your workout in case you want to work on something in particular.Great job, Peter, thanks!
Tips / General
Count your strokes
Streamline
Avoid dead spots where your speed stalls. Maintain moderate speed at least proplusive parts of stroke.
Watch lane rope or bottom of pool for speed dropping off.
Keep head neutral
Arms tightly against ears through kick/glide to maximize streamlining
Tips / Kick
Bend knees behind buttocks.
Brisk kick recovery during insweep of arms.
Recover the feet by bending the knees only ,keeping the knees about 1-2 fists apart at all times until the finish of the kick when they get even closer
Bring the feet up as close to the rear as possible
Externally rotate the ankles as far as possible for the catch (ideally pointing to the edge of the pool)
Then kick back and simultaneously internally rotate the ankles so that you finish with your soles nearly facing each other and your ankles touching
Tips / pull
Hands/elbows together on recovery.
Shoot hands forward on recovery; not up or down.
Keep elbows in front of shoulders
Don't get caught in the "prayer position" during recovery
Tips / turns
Touch 2 hands, drop elbow in turn direction towards opposite wall; don't "climb the wall"; Stay low and rotate on your side while turning. Explode off the wall and STREAMLINE.
Get into a ball and roll backwards with the only twisting motion from jerking back the elbow on your leading arm which is followed by recovering the other arm out of the water near your head
"Elbow the robber,call the cops"
Thanks.I'd been wanting to do that and never did Again,thanks
"To strive,to seek,to find,and not to yield" Tennyson
Allen
"Elbow the robber,call the cops"
Get a copy of my book Odd Man Out.
"Elbow the robber,call the cops"
Ever since reading that in "Mastering Swimming", it makes me laugh when I think about it. But, it has stuck in my head and I haven't forgetten it!
Peter, thanks for your updated list!
http://ElaineiaKsTravels.wordpress.com
~ Believing in your dreams can be far more rewarding than living by your limitations ~Karla Peterson
So much great info in this thread. Many thanks to the people who took the time to post it.
I finally took a video of my stroke and thought I'd post it up for critique. It was the first time I saw my stroke and I noticed a few things right away, but I'm sure there's more.
This is at a pretty slow pace. Next time I'll try to get one closer to race pace to see what changes.
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAqyZ1GieO8"]YouTube - Rob_breaststroke_29mar11.wmv[/nomedia]
I'll leave the actual stroke critique to the experts but in your underwater phase off the turn you should do a narrower pull. Going that wide is making you lose power and creating resistance. Like this:
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pepARhH8MlU&feature=related"]YouTube - Breast Kitajima gliding[/nomedia]
[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_PRpPGiAt8"]YouTube - Brendan Hansen Men's 200m Breastroke[/nomedia] (at 33s)
"Think of your breaststroke as a jewel: You never hammer it, you only polish it."
The actual stroke looks very good to me.
On the pullout you come to a complete stop at the pull to kick transition.Without being able to see what you are doing with your hands then I can't be sure why.Also on you arm recovery/lunge forward you are slanting your arms a little down instead of shooting them straight forward and then you have to raise them when you start your pull.This is a problem I have and have to constantly focus on(not always successfully.)
I wonder if you would be faster if you didn't come so high out of the water at the breath.I am not sure though ,so you may or may not want to play with that.Over all a very nice stroke.
"To strive,to seek,to find,and not to yield" Tennyson
Allen
http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com...-Santa-Clarita
SANTA CLARITA, California, April 21. AT the Santa Clarita Short Course Yards meet on April 17, Rose Bowl's Robert Strand, 65, downed a United States Masters Swimming national record.
Strand clocked a time of 1:07.63 in the men's 65-69 100-yard breaststroke. That swim eclipsed the 1:08.19 set by David Gildea back in 2009.
Strand's goal for the upcoming U.S. Masters Nationals in Mesa, Ariz., is to become the first man in his age division to swim a 1:05 in the 100-yard breast.
In other words he'll be the first man to swim his age in the 100 BR.If he is healthy I think he'll do it.
"To strive,to seek,to find,and not to yield" Tennyson
Allen
Keep elbows ahead of shoulders? I need to work on this!!
I get to zero speed during the recovery of my kick. How do I fix this?
Luca, is it possible to have somebody shoot a video of your breaststroke? There are some fantastic frogs on The Breaststroke Lane who have been great about looking at posted videos and providing excellent feedback.
F.Y.I. Nationals start on Thursday, so King Frog and several of his fellow top frogs will be a bit preoccupied until May!
http://ElaineiaKsTravels.wordpress.com
~ Believing in your dreams can be far more rewarding than living by your limitations ~Karla Peterson
Probably you are bending at the hips instead of just your knees and/or you are pausing your arms between the insweep and the recovery. A video would help to see.
"To strive,to seek,to find,and not to yield" Tennyson
Allen
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