I saw this in a weekly update from Google on “swimming lessons.” It was a great reminder that how we teach Breaststroke aligns completely with an excellent breaststroke swim!

Check out this video, and then I’m going to go through a few highlights on the Teaching Swimming: Fun and Effective Instruction workbook and how it combines to produce a breaststroke swim that looks just like the video!

Pay attention to:

• The glide. How long the swimmer staying in position 11 while the feet move
• The shoot. When the arms reach back into position 11, what does the head do, and what does the rest of the body do?
• The kick. It overlaps when the arms move, and the kick helps to “push” the arms forward into position 11.

Learning Breaststroke: Arms & Kick

We learn the two components separately at first. Why? Because breaststroke is an incredibly complex and difficult stroke to master at first.

Start with the arms, then work on the kick. Then, layer it together.

You can see in the video that the arms mostly move without the feet doing anything. The arms initiate alone, then as they reach the face or what we call “Eat” for beginners, the feet start bending at the knees to begin the kick.

Once the kick begins to push, the swimmer then thrusts their hands forward into position 11.

Check out this breakdown of the swim components from the Teaching Swimming workbook.

Breaststroke Arms:

Break them down into smaller pieces. Chunk them.

This is a VERY simplified flow of arm strokes. You can see in the video that the arms flare out wider than we do here. More modern breaststroke doesn’t have such a wide “Y” shape to the arm pull. It instead focuses on a powerful “Scull” or scoop with wider elbows.

The beauty of this progression is that it is SUPER effective at teaching children and adults the arm motion without worrying about power, speed, or pulling. We can get the kick mastered with this simple choreography.

Video recap. Did you see…

• The arms reaching into position 11?
• The kick starting during the “eat” phase?
• The swimmer remain in position 11 for a significant “glide?”
• How the breakdown of arms fits with the overall swimming stroke?