The Downward Breaststroke Kick Technique: Does Increasing the Kick Angle Decrease Time?

Breaststroke kick pattern is different from elite breaststrokers to none elite breaststrokers. We analyzed breaststroke kick of knee angles and hip angles from FINA (Fédération internationale de natation) former world record holder, Olympians, World Championship, The International Swimming League (ISL) and NCAA (the National Collegiate Athletic Association) Division 1 championship qualifier. Previous study explored the 1990’s breaststroke kick is very powerful because swimmers can push water back with the soles of their feet for a long period of time. We assess the effectiveness of utilizing a downward kick in the breaststroke with regard to the overall time, max speed, tempo, and velocity when using a downward breaststroke kick technique. We hypothesize that a significant proportion of the improvement is due to the downward breaststroke kick used in breaststroke competitions which resulted in a time improvement in the men’s 100-yard record from 57.04s to 53.69s. Using a downward breaststroke kick in individual medley competition resulted in improvements from 1:15.42s to 1:13.50s in 100-m breaststroke split time men’s 400-m individual medley. We find the introduction of the downward kick in the breaststroke kick is primarily responsible for this improvement in time.