I want to talk a little bit about breaststroke and what you can do to bring your times down, and be more relaxed, more comfortable and swim faster breaststroke. I got a email out from one of our Effortless Breaststroke customers this week and he’s been taking his son through some of the drills over the last 4 weeks. He’s had a pretty significant improvement in his time.
The time here he did 4 weeks ago in a short course pool; A 25 meter pool which is generally quicker than a long course pool. He went 38.7 for his 50, 1.23 for his 100 and 3.10 for his 200. Then 4 weeks later, going through the drills once a week, he’s dropped his 50 time down to 37.2 so he’s dropped it by a second and a half. He’s dropped his 100 time by a second and a half and then his 200 time by 10 seconds. And that’s in a long course pool.
If he swims again in a short course pool, he’ll probably drop them down even more because short course is faster. The reason that I think he’s probably dropped his times down so much is just because going through some of the drills in the Effortless Breaststroke Program, you get a bit of feeling for your rhythm and your timing and you also get more comfortable gliding a little bit further with each stroke.
If you can travel further with each stroke, but still have the same stroke rate, then you’ll swim faster. That’s what a lot of the Effortless Breaststroke customers end up finding is that they’re more relaxed, they can glide further with each stroke and travel further and they can maintain the same stroke rate with it. That’s what a lot of the drills are good for.
Drill From Effortless Breaststroke
The first ones are really basic. We start with kick on our front with your arms by our side. This is about getting used to being balanced with your body in the water and being in a better body position. I see a lot of swimmers swimming in a bit of an angle with their body rather than being horizontal in the water. That creates a lot of drag and it will feel like you’re really dragging yourself through the water. When you’re gliding forward, if you can be horizontal in the water, you’ve got that neutral body position so you haven’t got all this resistance on your front and on your legs, then you’ll find that’s a whole lot easier to swim breaststroke.
Especially if you’re swimming anything over 50, because breaststroke is a high energy stroke. You need to use a lot of energy to propel yourself forward because it’s not like freestyle where you can into a rhythm as easily. Breaststroke’s a bit different. And if you’re swimming anything over 50 breaststroke, then if you can travel a little bit further with each stroke and you can be relaxed throughout your whole race, then you’ll find that your times will probably come down very similar to what Alfonso’s son has done here.
I was speaking to someone at a Canberra workshop that I ran a couple of weeks ago, and they had very similar results with their breaststroke as well from going through the drills.
If you’re looking for a way to improve your breaststroke, get a better feel and be more relaxed, then check out some of the drills in the Effortless Breaststroke Program. I think that will really help you out if you’re looking for ways to get better in your breaststroke even if you’re not going to race, but you just want to learn how to swim good breaststroke then this is a good way to do it.
It’s good to mix up your training with other strokes like fly, back and breast because it will give your freestyle muscles a rest and anything that you can do to improve your general feeling of being in the water, that’s going help with your freestyle as well.
You can find the Effortless Breaststroke program here.
