Swim Drill Of The Week: Breaststroke With Single Arm Butterfly

Welcome to the “Swim Drill of the Week”. Swimming World will be bringing you a drill, concept, or tip that you can implement with your team on a regular basis. While certain weeks may be more appropriate for specific levels of swimming (club, high school, college, or masters), Drill Of The Week excerpts are meant to be flexible for your needs and inclusive for all levels of swimming.

This week’s drill is Breaststroke with Single Arm Butterfly. While maybe not the most catchy name, this is a great drill to work on staying low and forward in breaststroke. Combining single arm butterfly with full stroke breaststroke, this drill can help your swimmers develop a greater sense of body awareness by showing them the connections between the two short axis strokes.

The drill is done by alternating strokes of single arm butterfly with a full stroke of breaststroke. Pushing off the wall, swimmers should always start with a single right arm stroke of butterfly followed by a single left arm stroke of butterfly before they complete a full stroke of breaststroke. This sets the forward drive and undulation that is present in butterfly that we want to mimic in the breaststroke.

When doing this drill, swimmers should be focusing on the forward drive at the end of each stroke and how that connects to their body undulation. While breaststroke is obviously a very different stroke than butterfly in many ways, one commonality between the two strokes is that forward drive at the end of the pull phase of each stroke. In both strokes, that forward drive helps to keep the hips high and keep the focus on moving forward, not up and down.

When breaststroke is done most efficiently, it should feel like swimmers are falling forward with each stroke that they take. This drill is meant to help swimmers find that feeling and then transfer it over to their full stroke. For non-breaststrokers, this can be an especially great drill to show them what the forward drive at the end of their breaststroke kick should feel like (especially if they are good butterfliers!). Happy swimming!

All swimming and dryland training and instruction should be performed under the supervision of a qualified coach or instructor, and in circumstances that ensure the safety of participants.

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