How to swim faster in breaststroke

Hey people, and welcome back to my swimming blog. Today, we're going to continue with breaststroke. This time, we're going to discuss about how to go faster when swimming breaststroke. I know that we've discussed a bit on the overall swimming technique, but if you really want to maximize your skill in swimming breaststroke, you will need these tips.

As usual, here's the link to the video that you will need to watch in order to use in conjunction with the post and the tips inside it. Of course, you're free to not use it, but you will understand the post a lot more if you watched the video. So without further ado, let's get straight to it!

According to the video, the first mistake most breaststroke swimmers do in competitions is that they think that the leg pattern for the breaststroke is a “squeeze” pattern. By this they mean that the swimmers drops their knees out, then “squeeze” the water behind them as their legs kick. This technique will only make you expend too much energy in both the kicking and pulling actions on their legs. Although they may get longer glide, it's not worth the energy wasted.

The correct way to do this is to bring your legs up gently (at least that's how I think you do it) and when you are about to unleash the kick, do it in such a way that uses the water as a “booster” that you could boost your feet off of to make your feet a) make your body glide a good distance and b) doesn't expend as much energy as the method from the previous paragraph. This way you can be much more efficient with your stamina throughout the entire event, since the energy is divided equally throughout the whole event.

The next thing is the combination of both flexibility and strength. Note that you cannot have one without the other, because for example, if you only have flexibility without strength, you will only be able to perform smooth kicks, but little power. With only strength, you will easily waste your stamina. In conclusion, using only one without the other will result in bad swimming time. In order to achieve maximum kicking power, you need to maximize your ankle flexibility (you'll need a bit of time to practice this before going for top breaststroke swimming time) and your knee flexibility (you'll also need to practice this as well). After mastering these, you will be able to swim with effectiveness and achieve higher records for your breaststroke.

Finally, here's how you boost your speed with your ankles: “Pull” the water in as hard as you can with your ankles back within your feet, creating maximum ankle flexibility. According to the video (don't worry, I also got confused in this part), these will result in a chain reaction of movements that will eventually result in making your heels move, making your feet move faster. Had enough already? OK, we'll stop here. Next I will be moving on to the butterfly style, but that's another day. For now, goodbye and see you until the next post!