Breaststroke - Toe-Draw Recovery

If you’re working on creating a clean breaststroke, sometimes you have to start at the end.

Why do it:

Cleaning up the recovery of the kick can help you to avoid resistance at the exact point there is the MOST resistance in swimming… the recovery of the breaststroke kick.

How to do it:

1 – This is actually a very simple point, but does take some concentration.  When you finish your breaststroke kick, make sure you have your toes together.  Simple.

2 – When you start to recover the legs to set up the kick, keep your toes together for as long as you can before allowing them to separate for the kick.

3 – Initiate the draw of the feet with the toes together.

How to do it really well (the fine points):

This focal point only lasts for an instant.  Rather than allowing the feet to recover outside of the body, this helps to bring the feet up behind the body, in water that’s already being pulled along by the body.  The goal is that the feet are exposed to the water ONLY when they sweep out to grab water for the kick.

To really do this well, make sure that at the end of each kick, the toes are hyper-pointed.  Keeping the mind focused on the toes from the finish of the kick, to the initiation of the recovery, creates a cleaner line at the back, allowing the body to escape from vortices and turbulence that can be created from a loose finish.