The Effect Of The Pull-Out Technique (50m Breast)
Timing is everything
Being in the right place at the right time, who hasn’t heard this saying?
With the right timing comes the right opportunity. With the right opportunity dreams can come true.
Why should it be any different in swimming? From the start to gliding, the turn, and the swim itself — every detail counts. The timing going from one phase to the other counts.
Especially the shorter the event, the more precise you have to be.
When only a hundredths of a second decide whether you qualify for a competition, make the cut for the final, or even end up on the podium, you could say that here, too, the right timing is everything.
Each swimming style has its own unique characteristics, but breaststroke has always stood out of all four strokes:
It is among the most distinctive swimming styles. And one detail that has been tweaked for years is the underwater phase after the start and turn.
More than enough reason for us to take a closer look and investigate what truly matters in this part of the race. So we took a look at the shortest distance, the 50m breaststroke on the short course.
Why exactly the 50m? Quite simple…
The start and turn account for 55% of the total race time. More than half of the time of a race! So you can assume that these two race parts are critical.
Several questions came to our minds: What are the different types of pull-out? Which technique dominates? And which technique has the greatest potential?
We investigated all this in our study and presented it at this year’s WAD Conference in Lund, Sweden.
The topic of our abstract presentation was “The Effect of Pull-out Technique on Underwater Phase Performance in Elite Male 50m Breaststroke Swimmers.”
This was a huge opportunity for us to speak in front of coaches around the world and once more showcase our work.
But now, with no further ado, let’s dive right into the mesmerizing 7 main parts of what we’ve covered at the conference:
#1 The 2 different types of pull-out techniques
- Type 1: fly kick happens at the same time as the arm pull down
- Type 2: fly kick happens before the arm pull down
Little side note:
Until 2020, no solid document studied the efficiency of both techniques. At that time, our team member Jakub Brezina was the first to address the topic in his bachelor’s thesis.
In his evaluation, he discovered that in the male breaststroke sprint events, the ratio of both pull-out techniques is well balanced.
#2 The 4 Sub-Phases
We mentioned before that the acyclic phase, i.e. start and turn, plays an essential role in the final race time.
To get a closer look at those critical race parts, we divided the underwater phase into four sub-phases. So each of the sub-phases could be assessed individually:
- Sub-Phase 1 — First Gliding: full streamlined position
- Sub-Phase 2 — Pull-down: hand separation movement and backward movements with the hands to the hip
- Sub-Phase 3 — Second Gliding: time between the end of the pull-down and the beginning of the arm recovery
- Sub-Phase 4 — First kick + first stroke
# 3 The Study Objects
The goal of this study was to take a closer look at the following:
- Comparing the effect of the two pull-out techniques during the 15m after the start and the turn.
- Assess the relationship between all the sub-phases of the underwater phase with the time of the underwater phase after the start and the turn.
#4 The Methods
After presenting a clear framework, and a definition of the main terms, we talked about our methods.
Briefly, for this study, we compared the data of the men’s 50m breaststroke event from the Short Course European Championships in Glasgow 2019 and Kazan 2021.
In total, we analyzed 59 participants (age = 23.6±, FINA points 822±95) but we only added the best performance of each swimmer to the data set. So we made sure no data was duplicated.
#5 The Results
There were several intriguing findings. But these 3 stood out in particular:
- A significantly shorter time of the underwater phase in Type 1 compared to Type 2 — after the start as well as after the turn.
Of course, this can be concluded from the fact that in Type 1, the movements are made simultaneously. Whereas in Type 2, they are performed separately.
2. Even though the time underwater differed, there were no significant time differences at the 15m mark. Neither after the start nor the turn.
This suggests that both techniques are about equally effective.
3. Both gliding phases, especially Sub-Phase 1 the fully streamlined position right after the start, play a major part and are the most important for the underwater phase performance and should be studied in more detail.
#6 The Conclusion
Taking all this into account, we come to the following conclusion:
Type 2 spent less time gliding after the start and initiated the fly kick at a higher speed. This negatively affected the rest of the underwater phase.
When it comes to the optimal timing of the fly kick, the results of our study suggest a greater potential for Type 2.
#7 Future Plans
So our study had quite some fascinating findings…
And since the feedback at the conference was truly positive we know we are on the right track.
But it wouldn’t be us if we would stop here…
In the future we have quite some plans:
- We definitely want to gather more data regarding the pull-out techniques in the 50m breaststroke.
And therefore extend the sample size of the studied swimmers with the latest short course competitions, the WCH Abu Dhabi 2021 and WCH Melbourne 2022.
Then we’ll be able to see if our findings correlate with a larger group of international swimmers.
- With the new rules of the World Aquatics (former FINA) there will be new opportunities for us as video analysts.
With help of the inertial sensors, we will be able to examine the event in more detail Since we believe that this exact part of the race holds much-undiscovered potential.
- Finally, we want to find the optimal timing of the first fly kick for each individual swimmer.
And that’s about it. We definitely enjoyed being at the WADC and hope the timing will be right to come back next year, with new findings.
Until next time,
Team member Marek
P.S. If you want more details of our methods and findings, just DM us. We’re happy to give you more insights.
P.P.S. If you want to learn more about us and our mission to change the swimming universe, just visit us on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Also, we’re going to publish some magnetic insights into our work on our blog every other week Let’s keep in touch!
