Breaststroke Kick: The Complete Guide

Introduction to the Breaststroke Kick

Your kick contributes significantly more propulsion in breaststroke than it does in backstroke, butterfly, or freestyle. Although an effective kick is critical in all strokes, without an effective kick in breaststroke, producing any speed is extremely difficult.

Breaststroke kick is the only kick in which your feet turn out rather than in. Furthermore, your legs don't move in a predominantly up-and-down manner. Instead, they move mostly forward and back. Finally, there's a rotational component not found in the other kicks. For these reasons, breaststroke kick requires a completely different skill set than the other three strokes.

How the kick is performed stresses the muscles of your lower body in different ways. Because you squeeze your legs together at the end of your kick, the second half of your kick is powered by your adductors as you bring your legs together. This muscle group is more susceptible to injury for breaststrokers than people who do other strokes.

You'll also notice how quickly breaststroke kick fatigues your tibialis anterior. These muscles on the outsides of your lower legs bring your toes to your shin and turn your feet out at the beginning of your kick. If you aren't used to kicking breaststroke, these muscles can start burning in no time at all.

The larger muscles of your lower body are involved in the kick as well. Your quadriceps and glute muscles are critical for pushing backward against the water and extending your legs backward. Pushing back against the water requires a lot of force. In contrast, your hamstrings work hard to recover your heels, bringing your feet up to your hips.

The Goal of Your Breaststroke Kick

The goal of your kick is to push backward as much as possible against the water and to do so as quickly as possible. The more force you can apply against the water, the more speed you can generate.

To apply this force, you must perfect several key skills. The better you can do these skills, the more force you'll create and the faster you'll go.

You need to use as much surface area as possible to push against the water. In the other three strokes, the tops of your feet push against the water. In breaststroke, the insides of your feet, the bottoms of your feet, and even your shins are where your pressure is concentrated.

To create this surface area, your feet need to be pointed out to the side as much as possible after coming up to your hips. Just as with setting up your pull, be patient with setting up your kick so you can create a big surface area to kick with.

When setting up your kick, your feet should be positioned wider than your knees. That will put your legs in the most effective position to get your feet turned out so they can hold water. The actual width of your kick is secondary to getting your feet wider than your knees. If your feet aren't wider than your knees, getting the insides and bottoms of your feet facing backward, as well as maintaining that backward-facing position throughout your entire kick, becomes very difficult. If you can't accomplish that skill, creating speed becomes very difficult. Once you set up the right position, kick straight back to push against the water.

The Direction of Your Breaststroke Kick

One of the most common misconceptions about breaststroke kick is that it's primarily a rotational kick. Your goal should be to apply as much force as possible backward against the water with each kick.

There's a common saying that the kick is just “up, out, and around.” Although your feet do need to come up and then turn out, your kick at that point should be straight back rather than around. If you want to move forward, you must push backward against the water. The more directly you do so, the faster you'll go.

Your feet have some out and in motion, but that's only during the set-up of your kick and the finish of your kick. As your feet turn out, they're going to move out slightly. As your kick finishes and your toes are pointing backward, they'll come in slightly. The main part of your kick is almost entirely backward, however.

Elite breaststrokers are beginning to race at higher and higher stroke rates, all while maintaining incredible efficiency, and they're able to do so by using a very direct kick. Kicking back rather than around takes less time, which allows them to kick and pull at higher rates. And because their kick is just as effective, if not more effective, when they kick straight back, they can continue to get just as much propulsion from each kick.

Think of it this way: Your goal during vertical kick is to stay afloat. If you can't, you're in trouble. Only by kicking straight down are you able to keep yourself up in the water. The same idea applies when trying to move forward. The more you can direct your kick backward, the more you can send yourself forward.

The Proper Breaststroke Kick Recovery

As most breaststrokers are aware, timing is a critical aspect of swimming fast. It's not just what you do but when you do it that matters.

A slow kick recovery makes great kick timing a lot harder. Your legs should recover right as the arms finish their recovery. And your arms shouldn't pull until you complete your kick. If your kick recovery is slow, you'll either have to pull anyway or wait to pull, resulting in slower swimming in either case.

Your hamstrings power your kick recovery, bringing your feet to your hips. It's a movement that's quite different from anything else you'll do in the water. Although it's not a technically difficult movement, it can be challenging to do it fast, particularly if you don't have a lot of experience with breaststroke. Understanding how fast your legs need to move can be hard, and your muscles can get tired quickly once you do figure it out.

Excluding issues with timing, the faster you move your feet through the recovery, the more you can increase your stroke rate. The more you can increase your stroke rate without compromising how much propulsion you create, the faster you'll go. Increasing the speed of your kick recovery typically doesn't lead to your kick being less effective.

One additional challenge of executing a fast kick recovery is that the fast recovery is immediately followed by a patient set-up of your kick. Your feet need to be turned out to push backward against the water. If you rush this aspect of your kick and you kick before your feet are in position, you're going to miss out on a great kick. Be aggressive with your recovery and patient with the set-up.

The Proper Breaststroke Kick Width

A big controversy in breaststroke is how wide the kick should be.

Many coaches encourage swimmers to use a very narrow kick. Doing so and still being able to position your feet out requires a lot of range of motion in your hips, knees, and ankles, something many breaststrokers don't have.

The reality is that not all breaststrokers are the same. As a result, there's no one perfect kick width. What's optimal will differ depending on the shapes your body can produce. The most important thing is kicking straight back and, regardless of how wide your knees are, keeping your knees in the same position throughout most of your kick.

Rather than trying to use a particular kick width, remember the key principles:

• You need to be able to turn your feet out as much as possible to push backward with as much force as possible.
• Your feet need to be wider than your knees to make that happen.
• Your knees shouldn't move out when you kick.

Outside of those three principles, there's no right or wrong kick width that applies to all swimmers. Find a kick width that works for you and allows you to create as much speed as possible without leading to injury. The latter concern is just as important as the former because you can't swim when you're injured. Respect your body and you'll be set.

The Key to a Good Breaststroke Kick: Aggressive Patience

One aspect of breaststroke kick that's particularly difficult to manage is the speed of the components of the kick.

In the other strokes, your feet move constantly and at the same speed throughout. Not so in breaststroke. Your legs move fast, they move slow, and, during some parts of the stroke, they don't move at all. Even if you perfect the mechanics of the kick, you also must manage the differences in foot speed throughout the kick.

Your kick recovery needs to be fast. The faster you can get your feet to your hips, the better. Once you get your feet up, however, be patient when setting up your kick. You must wait for your feet to turn out before getting into your kick. If you rush it, you'll miss out on a lot of propulsion because your feet won't be pushing against the water as much as they could. Then you need to shift back to aggression and accelerate your legs through the kick itself to create as much propulsion as possible. A passive kick creates a lot less propulsion than an aggressive one. After your kick, your legs are stationary for a brief period. Again, be patient before initiating your kick to preserve effective breaststroke timing. And once it's time, your feet need to move fast.

Swimmers often move either too slow or too fast through their kick. You need to alternate between the two. If you want to perfect your breaststroke kick, you must know how to move your feet fast when it's time to move your feet fast, and you must know how to be patient when it's time to be patient.

Common Breaststroke Kick Mistakes

Because breaststroke kick is so different than the other kicks, and because it demands a higher degree of mobility in your lower body, mistakes are common. Here are the big ones you'll want to avoid:

• Not setting up your kick effectively. When your feet move to your hips, turn your feet out as much as possible. Ideally, your toes will face the side of the pool. This is your “paddle.” If you don't create an effective paddle, you're not going to push against the water with as much force as you could. Be patient to ensure that you get into an effective position.
• Not kicking directly backward. During the kick itself, your kick should be directly backward. If you try to kick around, you'll have a less effective kick and it's going to take a lot more time for that kick to happen. That slows you down on both fronts. How do you know if you're kicking around? Pay attention to the width of your knees. If they're sliding out, you're kicking around. If they're stable, you're on track.
• Moving your legs at the wrong speed at the wrong time. Don't move your legs fast when they should be moving slow and slow when they should be moving fast. Your kick recovery should be fast. Accelerate your legs throughout the kick itself. If you have a good kick but your speed is off, you won't get the outcome you're looking for.