Beginner Swim Workout Series: Workout 8

Today’s beginner workout focuses on breaststroke. I chose two simple drills in this workout because getting breaststroke timing correct can be a challenge and I didn’t want to complicate it with a lot of more difficult drills. A couple of things to remember:

• It’s called breaststroke, not hip-stroke or waist-stroke. When you pull, you want to make sure your arms don’t sweep all the way down by your sides.
• You’re head should be coming up to breathe the same time that your arms are pulling back to take a stroke. I always tell my age-group swimmers – “pull & breathe, kick & glide”
• You want to make sure you’re gliding with your hands out in front, not after you’ve already pulled with them dragging behind you. I see this a lot with my young swimmers and I tell them the look like turtle heads popping up out of a shell. It will cause your timing to be off and your hips to sink.

For the two drills, I put my two favorite and what I think are the easiest and most helpful. Long glide breaststroke is just that, holding your glide for an extended time. For 1 pull 2 kicks, you want to take your pull, then essentially kick in the streamline position twice before taking another stroke. Remember to take the drills nice and slow – it’s about form, not speed.

Today’s workout:

Happy breaststroke day! If you have a comment or question, leave it below!