The fundamental breaststroke skills, located in one place for your reference.
Swimmers who perform the strokes well and with apparent ease do so because they execute the fundamental skills well. Their strokes are clean, direct, fluid, continuous, and harmonious. There are no unnecessary movements, no unwanted pauses or interruptions, and the parts fit together nicely and beautifully.
Below is a breakdown of the fundamental breaststroke skills. Performing these skills well and at the right time in the stroke will ensure you are on your way to a seamless, smooth, and well-executed breaststroke.
Fundamental Body Position Skills
Start and end each stroke in streamline (body long and taut)
Breathe with the shoulders, keep the eyes down
Drive up and forward, down and forward
Hips stay at surface and back stays flat throughout the stroke
PULL - Breaststroke is the only stroke that the pull is not the primary propulsive force
Reach to the wide Y - elbows stay soft, fingertips wider than the elbows, and the head stays down
Grab a hold and power squeeze in - use your whole arm, engage your lats, back, and chest
Get skinny, lunge forward - hands shoot forward at hyperspeed, body streamlined
Handspeed - moderate (outsweep), fast (insweep), hyperfast (recovery) - i.e. neighborhood, highway, autobahn
Fundamental Timing Components
First pull, then kick, then glide
While arms pull, legs streamline
While legs kick, body streamlines
Breathe at the corners
Kick when the nose touches
Flowing transitions from pull to lunge to kick to glide to reach
Kick - Primary propulsive force in breaststroke
Heels to butt, toes out (kick recovery)
Grab a hold, snap and reach long and strong (kick catch and finish)
Swimmers initiate the kick by bringing their heels to their butts (kick recovery). At the end of the recovery, swimmers turn their toes outward, "flairing the feet" and grabbing a hold of the water. At the "catch", swimmers should feel water pressure against the inside of the feet and shins. As they kick, swimmers maintain a great grip on the water and press backward with the feet, accelerating fast to the finish. At the finish of the kick, swimmers snap their toes together while reaching as long as possible with their legs.
Breaststroke pullout
STREAMLINE LONG AND SKINNY
Dolphin K in streamline – sharp, quick, fast, and forceful.
PULL IS A BUTTERFLY PULL - Grab BIG H20, hold, and accelerate hands backward.
RECOVERY - Sneak the hands under the body, sneak the heels to the rear.
Kick forcefully and strong. REACH into the streamline.
Break out at the surface.
NOTE on DPS
As a general rule - the longer the race, the longer and more stretched out the stroke and pullouts should be. The motions of the stroke should be fast, quick, and powerful regardless of the amount of time spent in the streamline.