Breaststroke Pull Drills

Side Wall Pull

Side wall-pull helps you feel how to use your forearm and hand as a unit, and how to squeeze your arm to the side of your body. These are key skills, and this exercise is a simple and easy way to feel them.

Start with the wall to your side. Place your forearm flat on the deck and press down into the deck, trying to pull your arm through the deck to the side of your body.

Power Pulls With Buoy

Although this drill isn't specific to breaststroke, it helps you learn how to reposition your arms and push backward hard against the water with each stroke.

To perform this drill, lie flat in the water with your arms touching out in front of you and a pull buoy between your legs. Then slide your arms out, press your hands down, and pull straight back. Recover your arms underwater at the same time, returning to the start position, with your arms touching in front of you.

Focus on patiently setting up each stroke and applying pressure to the water, just as you'd do during a great pull.

Sculling

Because there's a lot of lateral movement during the breaststroke pull, practicing sculling can be useful for developing the ability to move your arms from side to side.

To scull, move your arms from side to side. When moving your hands out, rotate your hands in so that your palms face out. When moving your hands in, rotate your hands out so that your palms face in.

Breaststroke With Dolphin Kick

Working on your pull while swimming breaststroke can be difficult because the stroke requires precise timing. By using a dolphin kick instead of a breaststroke kick, you can work on your pull without the distraction of the kick.

The benefit of the dolphin kick is that it allows you to keep your hips up and maintain your rhythm. And because dolphin kick produces less propulsion than breaststroke kick, your arms must do more work.

To perform breaststroke with dolphin kick, simply do one dolphin kick per pull, with the kick occurring at the end of your arm recovery.

Breaststroke With Flutter Kick

Breaststroke with flutter kick can encourage you to recover your arms quicker and more aggressively. Because flutter kick is continuous, your arms move continuously.

If you find that you're struggling to recover your arms quickly, or that your arms are getting stuck under your chest after your pull, breaststroke with flutter kick can help you learn to recover your arms with more speed.

To perform breaststroke with flutter kick, swim breaststroke while maintaining a strong and consistent flutter kick.

Three-Pull, One-Kick

Three-pull, one-kick allows you to emphasize your pull while still retaining elements of breaststroke timing. You get to do multiple pulls in isolation, and then try to do a great pull within the rhythm and timing of regular breaststroke. This is a good drill when you've improved your pull and want to practice integrating it into breaststroke.

To perform three-pull, one-kick, take three pulls for every breaststroke kick. It's OK to do a light dolphin kick during the strokes in which you're not doing breaststroke kick to maintain your hip position and rhythm.

Two-Pull, One-Kick

Two-pull, one-kick allows you to emphasize the pull while still retaining elements of breaststroke timing. You can do multiple pulls in isolation, and then try to do a great pull within the rhythm and timing of regular breaststroke.

To perform two-pull, one-kick, take two pulls for every breaststroke kick. It's OK to do a light dolphin kick during the strokes in which you're not doing breaststroke kick to maintain your hip position and rhythm.

Closed Fist

By closing your fists during any drill or while swimming breaststroke, you're keeping your hands from pulling. This encourages you to learn how to use your forearm more effectively to push against the water. As a bonus, your hands will feel huge when you open them back up and swim regularly.

Closed fist is simple: Just close your fist and do the desired breaststroke activity. Doing a couple of repetitions with open hands afterward so you feel what it's like to use your forearm and hand together can be very helpful.

Upside-Down Paddles

Holding paddles upside down while you swim or do a drill encourages you to use your forearms more effectively. Holding the paddle in place locks your wrists. That means that your hands and forearms will move together as a unit. If your hands move back, so will your forearms.

To perform upside-down paddles, take any paddles and, instead of wearing them, hold them upside down by grasping the paddles and letting them rest across your wrists.

Stroke-Count Swimming

To help you learn to get more out of each stroke, count your strokes. This encourages you to make your pull as efficient as possible because lower stroke counts generally come when you create more propulsion.

You can try to take fewer strokes, try to swim faster at the same stroke count, or take fewer strokes at the same speed. These are all effective ways to use stroke counts to get more out of each stroke.