In his article “What went right with the wave style breaststroke?” at his excellent web site, www.breaststroke.info, Masters Coach and National Champion Wayne McCauley writes “there were three world records set in the USA Olympic Trials, two by Brendan Hansen and one by Amanda Beard.” In analyzing these world records, McCauley asks what part of the wave style contributes the most to forward velocity and best avoids loss of velocity between strokes. His conclusion: “Brendan and Amanda both spent more time with their heads underwater in streamline than their competitors, and both were able to swim faster longer than those competitors fighting the waters resistance.” He notes that in the finals, Amanda shattered the world record, while maintaining a relatively leisurely one-count underwater glide between strokes for the entire 200 and was the only woman in the final to pull, kick and glide on every stroke.
How could Amanda and Brendan break world records with relatively low stroke counts and stroke tempos? Because drag underwater is lower than drag at the surface, the secret to success in the wave style breaststroke is how much time you spend underwater in a streamlined gliding position, compared to the amount of time spent above the surface. “There is not much glide in the 100 breaststroke, but every tenth of a second spent with the head underwater lowers the total race time,” McCauley notes. “This is most evident in the swimming of Domenico Fioravanti, Kosuke Kitakima and Ed Moses.” Fioravanti, of Italy, won both the 100 and 200 breaststroke in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.
After reading Wayne McCauley’s article, I devoted a full week to making this style of breaststroke more consistent among the swimmers on the Hawks team. Here are the drill and skill items that helped the most.
1. Underwater Kicking. Push off the wall in perfect streamline. Maintain this streamline and take three breaststroke kicks underwater. Surface after the third kick, at as low an angle as possible and continue gliding as far as possible for as long as you can hold your breath. Check the distance you’ve traveled and repeat several times, trying to travel a bit farther on each, by streamlining better between kicks, tightening your bodyline from fingertips to toes.
2. Underwater Swimming. Push off the wall in perfect streamline. Then begin swimming underwater breaststroke, without doing the usual pulldown stroke first. Take three regular strokes – with hands not pulling beyond the head, before returning to an extended streamline. Following the third stroke, surface at a low angle and finish the length returning your head to the same streamlined position on each stroke.
3. Double Kick Breaststroke. Swim breaststroke, adding an extra kick to each cycle. During the extra kick, maintain a tightly streamlined body line just below the surface – feeling much as you did when doing the Underwater Kicking exercise above.
The most important awareness to retain after each of these drills is the feeling of the head and body being aligned and streamlined traveling sleekly just below the surface. Alternate 25 yards of a drill, with 25 yards of whole-stroke swimming, trying to glide completely – but barely – below the surface with the head right in line and looking directly at the bottom during the glide. Work at minimizing head movement during the breath, so you can return your head smoothly to this position after each breath. Count your strokes on whole-stroke swimming.
By alternating these drills with stroke-counting laps, by week’s end we were able to get most of our 10 and under swimmers to complete 25s of breaststroke in seven strokes or less, most of our 11-12s in six strokes or less and most of our teenage swimmers in five strokes or less – without sacrificing much speed.
Terry Laughlin is Head Coach of Total Immersion Swimming and of the Hawks Swimming Association in New Paltz, NY. Read more articles like this at www.totalimmersion.net.