If I recall correctly. Correct me Angus if I'm wrong. :-)
But doesn't the breast stroke involve revolutions of the wrist? The hands
start out palms facing each other, touching or almost touching. Then you
extend both arms in a forward stroke, keeping the hands flat, fingers tight
together to minimize friction through the water. Just as you extend your
arms as far as you can, you turn both palms outward and start to move them in
the outward circle to get back to the original position - imagine pushing
something outward with your palms. As you go through the circle, the wrists
and hands rotate in a more complex movement. The hands bend slightly at the
wrist and stay that way for most of the circle. Then, just as you get to the
point where you need to bring the hands back together for the next stroke,
you bend the hand further while rotating the wrists. What results is the
fingers of the hands point towards each other while the palms are facing the
body. You move the hands towards each other and just as they almost meet,
you change them to point forward, palms facing each other.
While they are doing this, your elbows are bending to bring the hands back
towards your body. The elbows also tend to be brought together when they are
in the start position, again to minimize the friction through the water when
extending your arms. And, of course, while the arms are doing this, the legs
are going through a frog-like motion.
If it is all done correctly, the head and shoulders are lifted slightly out
of the water on the backstroke of the arms and legs (which move together in
coordination). Usually the head is kept up and facing forward during the
whole stroke. The back is arched back to allow this. The shoulders are
usually kept back instead of moving forward when extending the arms.
Did I remember right, Angus? :-)
Bill Reese
"Angus B. Grieve-Smith" wrote:
> On Sat, 15 Apr 2000, Valerie Sutton wrote:
>
> > What is a breast stroke?
>
> The way I learned it, your hands start down near the bottom of
> your ribs and brush the body as they extend forward as far as they can
> go. They then move out to the sides and back down, pushing you
> forward through the water and completing the circle. The elbows are bent
> when moving the hands forward past the body, and extended for the rest of
> the stroke.
>
> > 1. Do the circles for the arms occur that far from the chest? - Are
> > they very very far from the chest when the circles happen?
>
> I didn't learn it with any circling movement at the end of the
> extension; the movement is a single, smooth circle repeated until you get
> to the end of the pool. Is that the way that Danny is describing it,
> Stefan?
>
> > 2. Do both arms move at the same time in a breast stroke?
>
> Yes.
>
> --
> -Angus B. Grieve-Smith
> Linguistics Department
> University of New Mexico
>
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