The breaststroke is believed to be the oldest stroke and the first to be swum competitively. Captain Matthew Webb was the first man to swim across the English Channel — from Dover to Calais — swimming the breaststroke for 21 hours 45 minutes without stopping on August 24-25, 1875.
The breaststroke is also one of the most complicated strokes to learn and features the complex frog kick. Technically speaking, it is completely different from all the other Olympic strokes, even in terms of where your forward thrust comes from, which is mainly from leg movement (70% legs and 30% arms). This makes breaststroke vastly different from freestyle in which power is generated from 40% legs and 60% arms.
In this article, we’ll guide you through the basics of how to perform a solid breaststroke swimming technique. Then, we’ll look into the various swim training tools you can use to help you to improve your breaststroke kick and your cardiovascular abilities.
Perfect Your Breaststroke Kick
Even though in this article we will focus on the breaststroke kick (more on that later when we come to swim training tools), we must master the whole stroke cycle so all elements complement each other. It’s no use having the perfect frog kick if it’s paired up with a…
