QUESTION:
Hi Gary
Not sure if you can help but I have an 11 year old daughter who is having trouble with breaststroke.
She has made State Age Championships for 50,100,200 freestyle, 100 & 200 backstroke and butterfly however has not qualified for any breaststroke events.
She swam on the weekend and did a PB in her 200IM. She led her heat in the butterfly and backstroke and then got swamped in the breaststroke. She gets really disheartened when this happens. She realizes you can’t be good at everything and she has been told that she’ll never be a breaststroker. She try’s really hard but just can’t get it.
She was told she is a butterflyer so therefore never be great at breaststroke……is this the case?
Hope you can help and thank you for your time with this.
Regards J
ANSWER:
Hi J,
As a coach, I have trained many swimmers who are strong at butterfly, backstroke and freestyle however really struggled with breaststroke.
Whilst a swimmer like this may never become a breaststroker, they can work on and develop their breaststroke on a daily basis.
I often find that swimmers enjoy doing the strokes they are good at and continually choose these strokes when they have a choice. The key is to practice breaststroke more often if you would like to improve it.
My advice would be for your daughter to speak to her coach and say something like “I understand that my breaststroke may never be as good as my butterfly, however what can I do to work on it and improve it for my medleys?” This will hopefully stimulate the coach to provide technical advice on breaststroke and help her to improve.
Let me know how you go.
Cheers
Gary
The Swimming Expert
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