BETTER BREASTSTROKE

QI’ve tried front crawl but I constantly struggled so I’m going to revert to breaststroke. Can you give me four or five tips on how to improve?

Sarah Maloney

AWell done for trying front crawl, but I’d be curious to know what it is that you’re struggling with; often, if it’s a question of breathing/stress/ rushing, the key is to learn to float first. This can help with finding your calm, and allowing the water to support you. From here, it’s then more achievable to bring in the arms and legs.

With breaststroke, there are obvious benefits. You’re looking forward more and there’s a natural breathing point every single stroke.

This can help take the stress out of swimming.

The biggest tip that I can give to make breaststroke quicker is to think about stretching out on every single stroke. Focus on reaching forward with the hands and stretching your legs back.

Next, between every ‘reach’, try to keep your stroke continuous. What often happens is that swimmers pull their hands back, lift their head to take a big breath and the hands get stuck under the chest/chin. If this happens, it’s like putting the brakes on – the hips sink and you lose all momentum. Instead, pull your arms round slowly and, as you do this, your head will pop out of the water. As soon as your hands get to your chest, accelerate your hands forward to maintain your momentum.

Thirdly, your head position is important. As with swimming front crawl, the less head movement you have, the better. Naturally there’ll be

a little bit of lifting to breathe and then dropping back down, but the higher you bring your chin up, the more likely you are to have that pause. Your chin has to barely come out.

Finally, when you kick concentrate on squeezing your feet together; imagine that you’re clapping your feet behind you at the end of the kick. Your rhythm should be something like a spring – coil arms and legs together slowly, then accelerate out with power.

John Wood