What it is
Swim breaststroke for two high-quality strokes. Each stroke must include a breath and all components of a legal stroke.
Essentials
- Arms with a breath, kick, and glide — in that order.
- Going slow and extending to a full reach is important.
- Aim for controlled movements over fast, sloppy motions.
- Each stroke must include a breath and all components of a legal stroke.
- No flutter kick; the kick is a legal breaststroke kick.
- After the kick, extend into a long 11 glide before the next stroke.
Progression
- 3× SL + 2 Breaststroke Kicks — stay in a tight streamline; focus on "feet out, heels up."
- 3× SL + 1 Breaststroke Pull (11-Eat-11) — arm path and timing the breath, no kick.
- 5× SL + 1 Pull + 1 Kick — one full arm pull with a breath, then one kick returning to the streamline glide.
- 3× SL + 1 BR — full stroke: arms first with a breath, kick, snap feet together, hold in 11 for a long glide.
- 2 × 25 — 2 breaststroke strokes, then freestyle the rest of the 25. Repeat.
What goes wrong
- Fast, sloppy motions → slow down; controlled extension to full reach is the priority.
- Flutter kick creeping in → cue a legal breaststroke kick; the feet snap together, not a flutter.
- Pausing to breathe → breathe without pausing; the breath is part of the stroke, not a stop.
- Interrupting flow between strokes → start the second stroke without breaking the glide.
- Arms not fully extended before the second stroke → hold the 11 reach; do not rush into the next pull.
How you know it worked
Push off in streamline without kicking. At the surface, the swimmer completes two full, legal breaststroke strokes: arms first with a breath, legal kick, breathe without pausing, no flutter kick, extend into a long 11 glide after the kick, and start the second stroke without interrupting flow.
How you teach it
Breaststroke is the most complex of the four strokes, so the teaching approach is to break it into Pull, Kick, and Glide and build each chunk before combining them. The 11-Eat-11 arm progression isolates the arm path and breath timing without the added variable of the kick; the 2-kick drill isolates the leg pattern with the "feet out, heels up" cue. Only when both chunks are stable do you add them together in the 5× SL + 1 Pull + 1 Kick set, and then in the full 3× SL + 1 BR.
The Mini, Medium, Huge drill is useful when a swimmer's arm path is inconsistent: two tiny strokes, two narrow strokes, two wide strokes, then settle on "medium — a tad smaller than normal." This gives the swimmer a felt reference for what full reach actually looks like without over-rotating the elbows behind the back.
Safety: use the shallow end or a spot where swimmers can stand if they struggle to breathe. Watch for fatigue and do not require long swimming if a participant is weak. Swimming to you rather than to the flags builds confidence and keeps you in a position to intervene. Be in the water as often as possible.
The bonus goals (underwater breaststroke pullout, kick beginning to pull up as the arms squeeze through the eat and breath, a strong propulsive kick into a long glide, full arm extension before the second stroke) are stretch targets, not pass/fail criteria. Use them to differentiate: a swimmer who hits the testable goal cleanly can work toward the bonus markers, while a swimmer still finding the timing stays on the chunked drills. The 2 Kicks + 1 Pull drill (get lower in the water, two kicks then one pull) is a good intermediate step for swimmers who need to feel the timing and body position before attempting the full two-stroke set.