Swimming Breaststroke: The Complete Guide

What Is Breaststroke?

Breaststroke is unique.

It's the only stroke in which you aren't allowed to recover your arms over the surface of the water. Your kick also is distinct in that your feet are turned out and move backward, with a significant rotation thrown in. In other strokes, your feet must be turned in slightly and move in an up-and-down motion. Breaststroke is also the only stroke with a period of no movement. This stop/start makes for rapid firing of your muscles, which can make breaststroke challenging to swim.

Breaststroke dates at least back to ancient Egypt, when cave drawings depicted the stroke. Breaststroke was the stroke of choice for races in the late 1800s (though its popularity has been surpassed by the front crawl, more commonly known as freestyle).

In the 1930s, breaststrokers began to recover their arms over the water, which led to faster swimming. In 1953, this overwater stroke was separated into butterfly, and breaststrokers were required to recover their arms underwater. Breaststrokers had to keep their head above the surface of the water until 1987. After that, breaststrokers rapidly adapted to what is now the current version of the stroke.

Breaststroke races are 50, 100, and 200 yards or meters. The 50 is an all-out sprint that requires pure speed, and the 200 is a middle-distance event that requires a blend of speed and endurance. You can also swim breaststroke in the medley relays, in which four swimmers perform one stroke each (backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and freestyle, in that order). These relays are 200 and 400 yards or meters in total; each leg consists of 50 and 100 yards or meters.

The Elements of Breaststroke

A breaststroke stroke cycle consists of one kick and one pull.

These two elements get most of the attention because they're responsible for creating the propulsion that moves you forward. You pull with both of your arms at the same time, and kick with both of your legs at the same time. The pull is much shorter than in the other strokes because your arms must be recovered underwater. The kick is distinct from the other strokes because your feet are turned out during the kick. This unique technique results in a lot more propulsion with your kick than with your arms, and the kick creates a lot more speed in breaststroke compared to the kick in other strokes.

You should focus on swimming with an effective body position and effective timing with your arms and legs. These components must be coordinated.

Because your arms and legs recover forward underwater, breaststroke creates a lot of resistance. To reduce the amount of resistance, maintain a body position that's as horizontal as possible. This is especially important when lifting your head to breathe with each stroke.

Effective timing maximizes the amount of propulsion while minimizing the amount of resistance. If your arms are pulling while your legs are recovering, or your legs are kicking while your arms are recovering, that's like applying the brakes and pushing the gas pedal at the same time. These actions need to be timed correctly to maximize your speed.

Impact of Breaststroke on Your Body

As with all competitive swimming strokes, breaststroke is a full-body activity that engages most of the muscles in your body. And because breaststroke creates so much resistance, you'll face an increased demand on your muscles compared to other strokes.

Your pectoral and latissimus dorsi muscles power your pull, but your biceps are also heavily involved. Your shoulders work hard to stabilize your arms throughout the pull.

Your quadriceps do a lot of work to push backward against the water in your kick. Your groin muscles also help your knees move from out to in. Your hamstrings and hip flexors help you recover your legs forward to set up your next kick.

How many calories you burn while swimming breaststroke is dependent on the size of your body and the intensity of your swimming. However, 700 per hour is a good benchmark. This high expenditure is related to the large amount of resistance breaststroke creates as you swim it.

Breaststroke provides some unique challenges when it comes to overuse injuries and pain. Although breaststrokers are susceptible to the same overuse shoulder injuries present in swimming all strokes, your underwater recovery for breaststroke may protect you in some cases.

Your bigger concern will often be injuries to your knees and groin, which are distinct to breaststroke. Turning your feet outward with your feet wider than your knees during your kick stresses your knee, especially if repeated at high intensities. Likewise, the squeezing action of your kick can stress your groin muscles. Therefore, be cautious if you do a lot of breaststroke kicking.

Common Reasons for Getting Disqualified in Breaststroke

Breaststroke provides unique opportunities to be disqualified, compared to the other strokes.

• Arms or legs out of sync. The simplest way to get disqualified is if your arms aren't moving together or if your legs aren't moving together. Although your pulls and kicks don't have to be perfectly symmetrical, they do need to happen at roughly the same time. What one arm is doing is what your other arm should be doing. The same applies to your legs.
• Improper kick. Three common kick mistakes get swimmers disqualified in breaststroke: The first is not turning both your feet out during your kick— one foot is turned out and the other in, which is known as a scissors kick. The second is executing a dolphin kick, except as allowed in the pullout after a start or turn. Because of the up-and-down nature of breaststroke, your legs might follow and do a dolphin kick either intentionally or unintentionally. The third kick mistake is separating the feet, causing you to flutter kick. Because there are often pauses during breaststroke kick, your feet can get separated. Remember that any extra movement of your legs beyond a correct breaststroke kick can get you disqualified, even if it's unintentional.
• Arms out of the water. Recovering your arms completely out of the water is impermissible. Although such a disqualification is rare, it's something to be aware of, just in case. If some part of your arm is underwater, even if it's just your elbow, you'll be OK.

How to Build Speed and Endurance in Breaststroke

If you want to swim breaststroke faster, practice swimming fast. Keep the distances you swim short and the rest periods between swims long enough to ensure that you can practice swimming fast without too much fatigue.

When sprinting, don't focus solely on exerting a lot of effort. Swimming well is also critical, so also stay focused on your technique. With breaststroke, performing pulling, kicking, and timing drills at high speeds can be valuable. These give you extra practice swimming fast with great skills. If there's a particular part of your stroke you struggle with while swimming fast, these drills are a great way to work on it.

The way to improve your breaststroke endurance is different than building your backstroke or freestyle endurance. Because breaststroke is both a physically and technically demanding stroke, it can be difficult to swim well over longer distances. But swimming longer distances is an important aspect of improving your endurance. You'll have to be creative to ensure that you can increase your volume without losing your technique.

You can take two approaches.

• Do a lot of separate kicking and pulling sets when working on your breaststroke endurance. When you focus on just your arms or legs, it's a lot easier to hold your skills together while working hard and building fitness. Then you can swim some extra breaststroke to put it all together.
• Stick with shorter repetitions, say 50s and 25s, and have a relatively short rest for most of them. These shorter distances allow you to maintain proper technique, and the shorter rest intervals and higher volumes allow you to build your endurance.

The Breaststroke Pullout

A major aspect of swimming fast breaststroke is the underwater pullout, which is done after the start and upon leaving each wall after a turn.

This is particularly true in short-course swimming. Some elite short-course breaststrokers spend more time performing their pullouts than they do swimming on the surface. Good pullouts are also a major reason why some swimmers are more successful at short-course breaststroke than long course.

When performed well, a great pullout can boost your speed with relatively little energy expenditure. Also, you'll swim less on the surface.

A key part of executing a great pullout is having great alignment from the moment you leave the wall, through the pullout itself, and after the pullout. Great streamlining is more important than the power of your pullout itself.

That's not to say having a powerful pullout doesn't matter. It does.

With the pull portion of the pullout, you're trying to move as much water as possible with your arms, starting with your arms above your head and moving them down to your hips. This pull can extend the momentum you generate from your push off the wall.

After some controversy in the 2004 Olympics, swimming's governing bodies allowed breaststrokers to perform a single dolphin kick during the pullout. Many swimmers do their dolphin kick before the pullout begins, but some do it at the end of the pull portion of their pullout. There doesn't seem to be a definitive answer as to the most effective timing, so go with whatever feels best for you. Breaststrokers are also allowed to take one breaststroke kick during their pullout.

The biggest challenge with the pullout is that it requires patience to be performed well, and you must execute the pullout while impatiently waiting to breathe.

A quirk of breaststroke is that you can surpass the 15-meter mark before coming to the surface. Butterflyers, backstrokers, and freestylers must have some part of their head break the surface of the water by that point or else they'll be disqualified.

Individual Differences Among Breaststrokers

Whether you're watching the championship heat of the Olympics or a heat at a local Masters meet, you'll see a variety of ways to swim breaststroke. These swimmers aren't making mistakes. They're simply using the strategies that work best for them.

One of the most obvious differences between breaststrokers is the use of gliding and stroke rate. Some breaststrokers take long strokes with a big glide, using a low stroke rate. Other swimmers will use a higher stroke rate with almost no glide.

What should you use? You'll have to experiment and figure out what works for you. Generally speaking, the stronger your kick, the lower the stroke rate, and vice versa.

When it comes to the pull and kick, you'll see a lot of differences as well.

The stronger you are, the more you'll be able to use a larger and more powerful pull. The opposite is true because you simply won't be able to move as much water with each stroke. The same applies to shoulder range of motion. The more range you have, the easier it is to do a big pull.

Mobility is the key to your kick. The more mobility you have in your hips, knees, and ankles, the more effective your kick will be and the easier it'll be to keep it small and fast.

You may develop knee pain if you swim a lot of breaststroke. If you feel pain, rest is often the best answer. Modifying the width of your kick can also help. A kick with a wider knee position will tend to put less stress on your knees, usually without sacrificing much speed. If you're suffering from knee pain, changing to a wider knee position might be worth it.

How Do My Times Compare to Other Swimmers?

When you start an athletic journey, you'll want to know where you stand. Because swimming is so quantifiable, it lends itself to those comparisons.

To help you get a better understanding of how your times compare to other swimmers, here are different ways to understand the different levels of Masters swimmers. By seeing a range of times, you can determine what to shoot for and where you are.

World Aquatics Masters Top 10 Times All Time

It starts at the top with the fastest performances of all time from across the world. These are the best swims ever. They give you a great sense of what's possible for the top Masters swimmers to do.

USMS Records

Here you can find the times for the fastest USMS members in history. Again, these are aspirational times to help you get an understanding of what's possible. Just search based upon your gender and your age.

USMS Top 10

Here you can search for the Top 10 times for your age group by year to see what it would take to be in the Top 10 for your age group. The Top 10 swimmers are going to achieve times that represent the pinnacle of what's possible for someone like you.

USMS Top 500

Finally, you can search for up to the top 500 times in your age group by year to see where you might stand. This helps you see the true range of ability levels for those who compete.