History and Development of the Breaststroke By: Sahen Grizzelle Breastroke The breastroke is one of the 4 major swimming styles in which the arms make circular movements in front of the body while the knees are brought up towards the body and then kicked out and back. The swimmer is on their chest and the torso does not rotate. It is the most popular recreational style due to the swimmer’s head being out of the water for a considerable amount of time and at slow speeds, it can be comfortably swum. In most swimming classes, either the breastroke or the freestyle is learned first for beginners, whereas at the competitive level, it requires the speed, endurance, and strength which rival the other strokes. Despite its rather seemingly simple form, it requires perfect timing between the circular pulling and kicking motions of the hands and the feet – which is why most consider it to be the most difficult stroke to master. It is the slowest of all competitive strokes and is believed to be the oldest of all swimming styles. History and Development The history of breastroke dates as far back to the stone age where a 10,000 year old rock painting of people who appear to be swimming was found in the Cave of Swimmers near Wadi Sora in the southwestern part of Egypt near Libya. The leg movements in breastroke may have originated from the imitations of frogs swimming. Depictions of a variation of breastroke are found in Babylonian bas-relief and Assyrian wall drawings. In 1538, Nicholas Wynman, who was a German professor of both languages and poetry wrote the first swimming book, Colymbetes with the goal of reducing the dangers of drowning and also contained a good medical approach to learning breastroke. Then, in 1696, Melchisédech Thévenot, a French author and poet wrote the The Art of Swimming which contains a description of a breastroke which is very similar to today’s. In the 1800s, where competitive swimming in Europe started, the breastroke was mostly used. Then, in 1844, a swimming competition was held in London in which some Native Americans participated; the British raced using the breastroke, while the Native Americans used a variation of the front crawl. The British swam only the breastroke until 1873. In 1875, Captain Matthew Webb was the first person to swim the English Channel and used breastroke, swimming a total of 21.26 miles (34.21 km) in 21 hours and 45 minutes. Then, the 1904 Summer Olympics was the first Olympics to have a separate breastroke competition and had a distance of 440 yards (402 m). Breastroke was also the first discipline to be approved among the 4 main strokes. In 1928, David Armbuster who was the coach at the University of Iowa conducted a scientific study of swimming by filming breastroke swimmers and analyzing their movements. He then discovered that the swimmer was significantly slowed down when bringing the arms forward underwater. So, in 1934, he developed a technique in which the swimmer’s arms were not brought under the water, but forward over the water. Although it was difficult to master, it brought a significant increase in speed. A year later in 1935, Jack Sieg who was a swimmer also from the University of Iowa, developed a new swimming technique: swimming sideways in the water and kicking his legs (closed) which was similar to the movements of a fish with its fin. Soon after, he modified it by turning the body on the front and kept the closed-leg kick – that was the birth of the ‘dolphin kick’. Later on, Armbuster and Sieg combined these techniques and called it ‘butterfly’. Using this new swimming style, Sieg swam a distance of 100 yards (91m) in 1:00.2. Although this technique was much faster than the original breastroke, the closed-leg kick violated the rules. Fortunately, however, the combination of butterfly arms and the original breastroke legs was allowed. At the 1936 Summer Olympics in berlin, only a few athletes used this style of swimming, but in 1938, almost every breastroke swimmer was using this technique. It was only until 1952 that the combination of butterfly arms with breastroke legs was accepted as a separate style and had its own individual rules. In the early 1950s, anther modification was developed for breastroke where breaking the water surface increases water resistance; swimming underwater increases speed. This led to a dispute at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Sydney when six swimmers were disqualified for swimming almost the entire distance underwater. However, the Japanese swimmer, Masaru Furukawa got around the rules by not surfacing at all after the start, but swimming underwater as much as possible before breaking the surface; he was only 5 meters above the water for the first three track lanes and completed the final track half underwater winning the gold medal. However, after several imitators had become unconscious in the water, FINA changed the rules which made sure that every swimmer had to break through the water’s surface with the head after the start and after every turn. In the 1960s, FINA made more changes to the rules: arm movements were only allowed to be carried out above the hips – except for the first stroke after the start and after each turn. In 1987, the head was no longer the only body part that could protrude from the water, but other body parts as well. This resulted in the development of a breastroke variant in which the swimmer brings the arms together as usual under the body after the pull, but then are thrown forward over the water from underneath the chin so that they would be able to ‘catapult’ themselves suddenly over the water until the arms are completely extended. Another dispute took place at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens after the Japanese swimmer Kosuke Kitajima defeated the world record holder Brendan Hansen in the 100m breastroke. Video footage taken from underwater cameras showed that Kosuke was preforming the dolphin kicks several times after the start and after the turns. Due to the officials not noticing this feat from above the water’s surface, the results remained the same. However, in July 2005, FINA changed the rules to allow one dolphin kick after the start and one after each turn. This took effect on September 21, 2005. References Breastroke https://www.portage.k12.wi.us/SWIMMING/BREASTSTROKE.pdf?__cf_chl_captcha_tk__=pm d_cggtlBsKXJlcgaJ2sLC9yXBzK_0foKZ8iY5EJ_9acWc-1633194836-0gqNtZGzNAxCjcnBszRaR Olivier Poirier-Leroy. The Breaststroke: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know. Your Swim Book. https://www.yourswimlog.com/breaststroke/ Meaning of breaststroke in English. Cambridge Dictionary. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/breaststroke Strokes. Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/sports/swimming-sport/Strokes#ref8798 History of Swimming. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_swimming Breastroke. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaststroke#Speed_and_ergonomics The History of Breastroke. Schwimmschule Steiner. https://www.schwimmschule-steiner.at/en/the-history-of-breaststroke/ Wesley Tingey (2018, July 1). HD Water Wallpapers. Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/wallpapers/nature/water 4 Major Fitness Benefits of the Breaststroke for Swimmers. Blue Buoy Swim School. https://bluebuoy.com/4-major-fitness-benefits-breaststroke-swimmers/ Emma-Kate Lidbury (2020, August 29). How To Do The Breaststroke Perfectly. Openfit. https://www.openfit.com/how-to-do-breaststroke
