The breaststroke may be the most popular of all swim strokes because of its stability and because it allows the swimmer to keep their head above water all the time.  In most swimming classes, beginners are taught the breaststroke and the front crawl first.  Swimming competitions regard the breaststroke to be one of the most difficult strokes to perform in competition.  The breaststroke takes plenty of endurance if it is done correctly.

The breaststroke is considered the slowest of the four official styles of competitive swimming.  You can learn the breaststroke fast, but it takes years to perfect the stroke.  You will be leaning on your chest with the arms barely breaking the surface of the water while your feet is kicking in a frog kick movement.  It is called that because it resembles how a frog swims in the water.  This swim stroke is slower than other competition strokes because the chest is often at an angle to the water.  Professionals use hips and their abdominal muscles to add some extra power to their kick. 

The breaststroke has been around since the Stone Age.  There are cave drawings of humans found in the southwestern area of Egypt.  It is thought humans were copying the swimming motion of frogs.  Illustrations of various breaststroke swimmers are found in the bas-reliefs in Babylonia and in wall drawings found in old Assyria.

The history of the breaststroke includes a mention of the swimming method used in a book written in 1696 by French author Melchisedech Thevenot.  Benjamin Franklin was an interested reader of this old book and helped to make this swimming stroke popular in the United States.  Captain Matthew Webb used this stroke to swim across the English Channel in 1875.  The breaststroke evolved into one of the more popular known swimming strokes and was featured as a separate competition in the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis.

The breaststroke has gone through many adjustments and has evolved into a streamlined method much improved over the original movement.  Swimmer David Armbruster filmed swimmers underwater to analyze the stroke and identify ways of making the stroke faster.  He was then the head swimming coach at the University of Iowa.  He modified the arm strokes that improved speed for the swimmer.  Nearly at the same time another swimmer modified the kicking motions of the legs.  These two adjustments were combined and are now what is accepted as the breaststroke style used in competition.

There are three steps to the arm movement, they are outsweep, insweep, and recovery.  Outsweep keeps the arms almost straight and parallel to the surface of the water.  This stroke is followed by the insweep.  The hands point down and push through the water in a backwards manner.  The elbows stay parallel to the shoulders.  At the end of the insweep, the hands come together in front of the chest and the elbows go to the side of the body.  Recovery is when the hands go to be beginning of the three-stroke sequence.  Breaststroke swimmer’s goal is to produce the most thrust during the insweep phase and have minimum drag during the recovery phase.

The kick is called the frog kick because it is similar to the motion a frog makes while swimming underwater.  The knees should stay as close to the surface of the water as possible.  The goal is to produce the maximum forward motion with minimum drag.

Competitions for the breaststroke take place in a short or a long pool.  There is the 500 meter, 100 meter, or 200 meter competition and is included as part of medley swimming competitions.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS