During this time it’s very important for the legs to remain straight and motionless. The arms are extended forward, and the legs are extended and held together. The history of breaststroke goes back to the Stone Age, as for example pictures in the Cave of Swimmers near Wadi Sora in the southwestern part of Egypt near Libya. Humans have strong muscles in the legs and would need swim fins (like a frog) to bring all their power into the water and stand with the sole of the feet on the water. In 1696, the French author and poet Melchisédech Thévenot wrote The Art of Swimming, describing a breaststroke very similar to the modern breaststroke. towards the head) along the side of the body. In the recovery phase the lower leg and the feet are in the wake of the upper leg, and the feet are pointed to the rear. Drag due to a wake is Newtonian drag, increasing with the square of the velocity. As a variant, it is possible to recover the arms over water. It is not permitted to roll onto the back at any time. Aim to make one leg lick less during the next lap compared to previous laps. In the scissor kick, one leg moves as described above, but the other leg does not form an elliptical movement but merely an up-down movement similar to the flutter kick of front crawl. This much faster form of breaststroke is referred to as "wave-action" breaststroke and fully incorporates the whip-kick. Swimming style in which the swimmer is on his or her chest and the torso does not rotate, Olympic or long course world champions in breaststroke, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Society for the Recovery of Persons Apparently Drowned, Olympic champions in men's 100 m breaststroke, Olympic champions in men's 200 m breaststroke, World long-course champions in men's 50 m breaststroke, World long-course champions in men's 100 m breaststroke, World long-course champions in men's 200 m breaststroke, Olympic champions in women's 100 m breaststroke, Olympic champions in women's 200 m breaststroke, World long-course champions in women's 50 m breaststroke, World long-course champions in women's 100 m breaststroke, World long-course champions in women's 200 m breaststroke, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Breaststroke&oldid=995384665, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles needing additional references from December 2010, All articles needing additional references, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, 50 yd Breaststroke (age group swimming for children 12 and under), 25 m Breaststroke (age group and club swimming for children 8 and under, 25 meter pool only, and not swum in year-around swimming), 50 m Breaststroke (age group and club swimming for children 12 and under), 100 m Individual Medley (short 25 m pool only), This page was last edited on 20 December 2020, at 19:11. The heels rotate outward to push water through the soles immediately after reaching the hips. At the beginning of the pull phase keep your arms extended and pull almost exclusively outwards with your hands until they reach shoulder level, then bend your elbows and simultaneously rotate your arms so that your hands no longer sweep out in a circular movement but are turned inwards until they come together beneath your chest. Rear view of Breaststroke leg kick technique. In the early 1950s, another modification was developed for breaststroke. The leg movement, colloquially known as the "frog kick" or "whip kick",[1] consists of two phases: bringing the feet into position for the thrust phase and the insweep phase. A watershed event was a swimming competition in 1844 in London, notable for the participation of some Native Americans. This is followed by the recovery of the arms to the streamline position once more with a breaststroke kick. Luckily, a better breast is possible with limited hip range of motion. Leg Movement — Breaststroke Kick. The finish is similar to the touching of the wall during a turn. While the British raced using breaststroke, the Native Americans swam a variant of the front crawl. In the scissor kick, one leg moves as described above, but the other leg does not form an elliptical movement but merely an up-down movement similar to the flutter kick of front crawl. One breaststroke problem Armbruster researched was that the swimmer was slowed down significantly while bringing the arms forward underwater. Arm pull and leg kick techniques, along with breathing and coordination all help to maintain an effective breaststroke body position. The resulting drag coefficient (or more precisely the frontal area) is thus doubled in the thrust phase. However, even though this technique was much faster than regular breaststroke, the dolphin fishtail kick violated the rules. Video from underwater cameras showed Kitajima using a dolphin kick at the start and at some of the turns. Keep your shoulders, hips and legs as horizontal as possible but slope your body slightly to allow the leg kick to stay beneath the water. After the start a gliding phase follows under water, followed by one underwater pulldown and dolphin kick, then one whip kick as the hands are recovered back to a streamline. The 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri, were the first Olympics to feature a separate breaststroke competition, over a distance of 440 yards (402 m). Some swimming teachers believe that learning the front crawl first gives a higher risk of an incorrect scissor kick when learning breaststroke afterwards. 1928 was the start of the scientific study of swimming by David Armbruster, coach at the University of Iowa, who filmed swimmers from underwater. Basically, the legs are held together as they move up and down with the feet almost straight out. Swim coaches, trainers and experts will give you all kinds of tips for performing at your best in both training and races. You ensure the legs work as one large fin for the best propulsion. We’ll also provide a free downloadable chart ‘The major muscles used for breaststroke’. In this video lesson, Swimming Instructors, Rotem Agame and Olga Tzinker, teach that you must practice the leg movement for the breaststroke kick out of the water first, then move into the water when you feel comfortable. The undulating style is usually swum by extremely flexible swimmers, (e.g. From the start and throughout the race the stroke cycle must be one arm stroke and one leg kick in that order. Good hip and leg flexibility can provide many benefits to the breaststroke swimmer, these include, Improving the swimmer’s body position in the water, which can help to reduce drag. Start doing it now! As a variant, some swimmers experiment with a flip over turn similar to front crawl. This is known as the pull-out. Technically speaking, it is completely different from all the others, even in terms of where your forward thrust comes from, which, in the case of the breaststroke, is mainly from the legs (70% legs and 30% arms). 1. Olympian Ed Moses still swims a flatter style, despite the rapidly increasing popularity of the wave-style. By Christophe / August 3, 2015 August 11, 2019 / Breaststroke, Breaststroke Technique The breaststroke kick is the kick used by the breaststroke swimmers. At any time prior to the first Breaststroke kick after the start and after each turn a single butterfly kick is permitted. The hands shall be brought back on or under the surface of the water. Breaststroke - Technique - Leg Movement. Professional breaststrokers use abdominal muscles and hips to add extra power to the kick, although most do not perfect this technique until the collegiate level. The feet retract to the bottom without moving the thigh, thus reducing resistance. As a variant, some swimmers move the knees apart during the preparation phase and keep them apart until almost the end of the thrust phase. An efficient kick is the key to maximising your speed and propulsive power. Some of the topics in this course are: Leg and Arm Movements, Pulling and Breathing, Kicking Without a Kickboard, and many more. The breaststroke starts with the swimmer lying in the water face down, arms extended straight forward and legs extended straight to the back. Unlike in the other kicks, the joints are moved into extrema. Breaststroke uses the regular start for swimming. Keep your elbows tucked in during the hand recovery phase, which should take place underwater. The head movement should be kept to a minimum and the shoulders should remain level throughout the stroke. The book (Benjamin Franklin became one of its readers) popularized this technique. Keep your body horizontal, in line with the surface of the water; your head should cut through the water to allow you to breathe frontwards. During the insweep, the swimmer accelerates their hands and hollows their back and lifts themself out of the water to breathe. 3. There are three steps to the arm movement: outsweep, insweep, and recovery. The initial position of breaststroke is to keep your body level with the surface of the water. Breaststroke can also be swum with the dolphin kick in butterfly, but this also violates the FINA rules. The competitive level, swimming breaststroke at speed requires comparable endurance and strength to other strokes the extreme in. Butterfly '' technique was much faster than regular breaststroke, swimming 21.26 miles 34.21! In ideally through the shoulders breaststroke until 1873 swum by extremely flexible swimmers, ( e.g games differentiated breaststroke swimming! 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