Small tips to speed up your breaststroke—body movement details always make all the difference.

•4 min read
Small tips to speed up your breaststroke—body movement details always make all the difference.


Breaststroke is a classic example of a swimming style that’s easy to learn but hard to master—its technical nuances and movement details require constant discovery, practice, and refinement during the swimming process. Here, we’ll illustrate the importance of refining these subtle yet critical details by focusing on three small aspects that are often overlooked in breaststroke technique.
Like butterfly stroke, breaststroke also involves a longitudinal body movement—put simply, it can be compared to the wriggling motion of a caterpillar. The key to this swimming style lies in ensuring that the limbs don’t move simultaneously; instead, there’s a distinct rhythmic pattern in how forward and backward forces are transferred. The clearer and more pronounced this rhythm is, the smoother and more natural the overall movement becomes.
1. Details of arm movements
After the front extension of the breaststroke arms, the two palms should be stacked as closely together as possible, with the entire body forming an "arrow"-like posture. Only then can the power generated by the frog kick—both the push and pull—be fully optimized to achieve the best propulsion through the water.
When performing the outward sweep of the breaststroke arm during the catch phase, avoid turning your palms outward at an angle greater than 45 degrees. Doing so not only significantly increases drag during the recovery but also does nothing to enhance efficiency—on the contrary, it actually slows down the entire arm movement.
When performing the inward sweep of the breaststroke arm stroke, don’t focus your force on your palm—instead, channel it slightly higher up your forearm, just above the wrist joint. This will make your inward pull much more powerful. As you execute the inward motion, aim to replicate the feeling of pushing yourself upward in a push-up, effectively pulling your body forward.
2. Elbow clamping and shoulder shrugging are not actual movements.
Historically, elbow tucking and shoulder shrugging during the breaststroke have seemed like standard moves for professional swimmers. In reality, elbow tucking is simply a natural extension of the inward sweep motion, while shoulder shrugging is merely an inevitable result of the elbow-tucking action—provided the shoulder joint has sufficient flexibility.
If you treat naturally occurring body postures like bent elbows and shrugged shoulders as deliberate actions, you risk falling into the trap of performing movements for the sake of movement itself. When you consciously try to execute these gestures as specific actions, you’ll likely feel awkward, uncomfortable, and completely disconnected from your swim—making the effort pointless altogether.
In other words, if the elbow-clamping motion doesn’t occur, the issue isn’t with the elbow clamp itself—but rather with the inward-pulling movement. However, if the inward pull does lead to elbow clamping but fails to produce the intended shoulder-shrugging posture, it’s time to focus on improving shoulder joint flexibility through targeted exercises. At the same time, strengthen your core and lower back muscles by practicing and mastering the "" (waist-strengthening) movement more frequently.
Similarly, in breaststroke, the head naturally rises out of the water after the arm movement—there’s no deliberate lifting of the head. Instead, some breaststrokers lift their heads as they exit the water and lower them again upon entry, mimicking the motion of a chicken pecking at grain. This not only lacks elegance but also reduces efficiency.
3. Frog legs have evolved from slow, controlled retraction to swift, nearly silent leg movements.
A frog's leg can generate a more powerful kick and glide only after fully retracting it. However, a complete retraction phase may create greater frontal drag in the water. Thus, there’s a trade-off between maximizing the power of the kick and minimizing the positive water resistance that hinders forward motion. The key is to strike the right balance—ensuring sufficient retraction while striving to reduce frontal drag as much as possible.
For swimmers new to the frog kick, the key is to start by focusing on the technique of a slow leg pull followed by a quick, powerful push-and-clamp motion. Once you begin to feel the coordination between the frog kick’s push-clamp action and your core strength, gradually reduce the amplitude of your leg-retraction movement.
Learn to quietly draw your legs inward—specifically, bring them so far in that your thighs are perfectly parallel, avoiding any outward "eight" position. An outward "eight" stance would create greater frontal water resistance.

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