Breaststroke can be a difficult stroke to perfect, whether you’re learning to kick correctly, master your timing, or do something quite else. But do not worry. All brewers, no matter how great they are, are always trying to improve their technique.

To help you with your breaststroke technique, here are tips from four swimmers who won the 200 breaststroke national championships on Friday, day three of the United States National Masters Short Course Championships in Greensboro, NC. .

Kick, kick, kick

Mike Freshley naturally doesn’t recover as quickly at 80 as he did when he was younger. This leads him to limit his training to 2,000 to 2,500 meters / meter.

Because of the importance of a good breaststroke kick to a fast swim, Freshley spends about a third of each practice, 800 yards / meters, on the breaststroke kick. His usual game is 8×100 focusing on quality, not just insane kicks.

“The kick is 70 percent of the kick,” says Freshley. “If you don’t have a kick you’re screwed.”

After mainly swimming in MI growing up, he started doing more breaststroke events in college and continued to swim masters. Sarasota Sharks Masters member holds 21 USMS records and seven FINA Masters world records, primarily in breaststroke and IM events.

Freshley’s kick was the key to his success.

He has dedicated himself to perfecting his kick over the past decades. He focuses on the end of his kick by doing a breaststroke kick on his back, making sure he brings his feet together at the end of each kick cycle, and squeezing the soles of his feet. feet together while watching television.

Nail your socket

While your kick will provide the majority of your propulsion in breaststroke, you should still work your grip. Britta O’Leary spent years trying to perfect hers.

For a good grip, swimmers should start with their hands in a contoured position and sweep slightly wider than shoulder width before putting their hands just in front of their head. O’Leary, 36, likes to focus on his catch while using a parachute or short stretch rope, things that also help him focus on finishing his kick.

O’Leary, a member of Atlanta Water Jocks, also recommends swimmers not to dive when stretching in a streamlined position after a swim cycle.

A bad grip can cause you to spin in the water rather than swim effectively, which is especially noticeable in a 50 breaststroke.

“If you go for it and you make your breakout and you don’t catch that first catch in the 50 correctly, that’s it,” O’Leary said. “You can’t find your stroke. You can’t find the right outlet.

Find your best time for breaststroke pull-ups

Sara Dunn gets questions about breaststroke technique all the time, but she never knows how to answer them. She relies heavily on the sensation, especially for her underwater removal.

Being aware of how fast you are moving through water, a form of proprioception, is important for proper underwater withdrawal. Once you’ve dived into the water or pushed off the wall, you need to perform your dolphin kick, retract, and kick before slowing down, which requires awareness of how fast you move. If you want too much time before doing any of these steps in your underwater withdrawal, you are behind your competition.

But what is the right timing? The answer is complicated.

The clues to having a good underwater withdrawal that Dunn is trying to follow are to have a tight aerodynamic stance and not to rush through the streak. To find what works best for her, Dunn will occasionally experiment with how long she slips during her underwater withdrawal. If it’s faster, she’s found something new to do; if not, that’s another piece of information.

A great submarine retreat takes a lot of time and work to develop.

“Years of practicing,” says Dunn, 48, a member of the North Carolina lifeguards. “Years and years of practice. You practice the way you want to swim in a competition. I always do hits with both hands, I always do a strikeout like I want to do in a competition.

Find the power of your core and glutes

Rice Aquatic Masters member David Guthrie has spent years swimming breaststroke focusing on his arms and legs and letting his core relax. Now he swims the exact opposite trying to keep his abdominal and gluteal muscles firm as he swims, performing what is called a posterior tilt.

“My hips were sagging and I couldn’t understand why,” Guthrie said. “As soon as I start engaging my glutes and doing that posterior tilt, all of a sudden my hips are on the surface.

“[I try to] shortening that line from my breastbone to my navel, which is a bit counterintuitive. We think of breaststroke, there is a kind of little arch in the lower back. You want to remove this completely. You want to connect your glutes to the rest of your torso.

Engaging certain muscles can be difficult, especially for swimmers who haven’t worked them a lot before or who have range of motion issues due to injury or age.

To help activate and strengthen his muscles, Guthrie, 61, who holds 17 USMS records and a FINA Masters world record in breaststroke, began taking a Swedish gymnastics class several times a week when his pool was closed for the coronavirus pandemic.

“I had never done adequate push-ups in my life,” he says. “I didn’t know what the right form was, so when I started my goal was to do 10 push-ups in a row. You have to make your way to full movement, to full movement.

“My body has learned so much. I was just seeing consistent gains. Calisthenics is fantastic that way. I have been doing yoga for years. I did strength and conditioning. I did weight lifting. Nothing compares to Swedish gymnastics. I’m really excited to transfer this to the pool.

USMS records broken

  • Richard McClow, Libertyville Masters: Men 90-94 100 IM (1: 52.03)
  • Frank Manheim, Reston Masters Swim: men 90-94 50m backstroke (48.69)

Note: All records are subject to change pending verification.