Avoid doing a scissor-kick. In the thrust phase, drive your legs back into a stretched position to propel yourself forward. In breaststroke, the way you use your feet is very important for generating maximum thrust. You should begin with your legs outstretched, toes pointing back.
Dropping Elbows
Lots of swimmers drop their elbows on their breaststroke pull, which significantly reduces the amount of water they're able to pull with each stroke. Instead, initiate your pull by bending at the elbows and keeping your hands in line with your forearms.
Inefficient Kicks and Pulls
Bring your heels up (without breaking the surface) quickly, flex your feet and point them outwards before pushing the water back and bringing the legs together. A few common mistakes are bending the knees up to the chest, kicking with the knees too wide, and not completing the kick.
A breaststroke swimmers arms and legs must move simultaneously, on the same horizontal plane, and identically to each other. The arms and legs stay mostly underwater, but a swimmer's head must break the surface every stroke. So-called scissor kicks are not allowed. The arm stroke begins and ends in streamline position.
Scissors, alternating movements, or downward butterfly (dolphin) kicks are not permitted except as provided herein. Breaking the surface of the water with the feet is allowed unless followed by a downward butterfly (dolphin) kick.”
Unlike any of the other strokes, the breaststroke works your legs a lot harder – and the constant up and down motion adds an extra dimension of resistance compared to the more streamlined front crawl or backstroke.
As your body is now in an oblique position, you look down and slightly forward. Your recover your arms forward just below the water surface. As a consequence, your head and shoulders drop back down in the water. Simultaneously, your legs kick outwards and backward, and your hips move towards the water surface.
The breaststroke kick is hardly a natural movement and can trigger knee pain in all swimmers. Though non-specialists may be at risk due to lack of conditioning for the kick, specialists may have an even higher risk due to much greater breaststroke training volume.
Regardless of the reason, swimming the breaststroke with your head above water can put a significant and unnecessary strain on your neck. Imagine walking for twenty minutes with your face pointed straight up towards the sky. After your stroll, you'd have quite a neck ache!
When learning the correct swim strokes, mastering a breaststroke is typically considered the hardest. It's often the stroke students struggle with most, due to movement of the arms and legs at the same time. The stroke requires both dorsiflexions of the foot, while also simultaneously using plantarflexion of the arms.
In theory, you could do a flip turn if you touched the wall with both your hands and then flipped. However, this would be extremely hard, because (according to USA Swimming Rulebook 2018), “Scissors, alternating movements . . . are not permitted[.]”
Each stroke uses different muscles and provides different benefits, so it's advised you use a mixture to ensure your whole body is worked and your muscle groups are balanced. The butterfly stroke is generally considered to be the most effective stroke for losing weight and toning your muscles.
Like all strokes in general, the breaststroke casting is very effective for strengthen stomach muscles. Thanks to the movements of the arms and legs, it also allows you to work the shoulders, waist and buttocks. However, be careful not to overdo it, at the risk of tiring yourself out, especially in the hips and knees.
Swimming breaststroke might not be as fast as front crawl, but it still provides a good all-over workout for most of the major muscle groups in your body. In particular it tones the quadriceps, glutes, upper back, triceps, hamstrings and lower legs.
The breaststroke is arguably the easiest swimming stroke for any beginner. Because you keep your head out of the water, you may feel most comfortable starting with this basic stroke.
The survival breaststroke is the primary stroke used in a survival situation because it puts the swimmer in a position to transition to survival floating if necessary.
Like all swim strokes, breaststroke works multiple different muscle groups. This swimming style is a particularly good option for working your chest muscles and your hamstrings. Your thigh muscles, core muscles and arm muscles will also benefit from breaststroke. Breastroke is also a great cardio workout.
Arm action
Try not to sweep your arms too wide – remember much of the propulsion comes from the legs – not the arms. Your hands can recover under or over the water but your elbows should remain below the surface. Your arms can then stretch forward with your hands close together to restart the arm action.
In terms of energy expended, front crawl is more efficient for a skilled swimmer. Breaststroke uses the big leg muscles, and you can spend half … the stroke in a glide, so it feels much easier. It is so difficult to get the breathing exactly right for the front crawl, which makes it more exhausting than breaststroke.