Swimming Breaststroke – the best stroke

We have all been there – sitting behind a breaststroker, trying to overtake them, trying to get around their wide kicks and slow speed. Frustrating!!!

However, to get good at breaststroke – you have to swim breaststroke! That is to say, if you want to swim fast breaststroke in competition you have to train to swim fast breaststroke.

Many swimmers wonder why their breaststroke does not improve. Often the reason is simple…they don’t swim it enough in training.

How often do you do a full session of breaststroke? That’s breaststroke warm up, breaststroke kick, breaststroke pull, breaststroke drills, breaststroke main set, breaststroke starts / turns / finishes.

Many breaststrokers find themselves doing a few breaststroke drills in warm up, a few 50’s of breaststroke kick and then freestyle or medley main sets. Now often this is because of crowded lanes and the need to get the work done – particularly during main sets – but there is an old saying, “train the way you want to race”.

Allocate two to three sessions per week of nothing but breaststroke.  Breaststroke specific sessions, and especially timed breaststroke main sets. Then, watch how much you improve!

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