Three Kicks, One Pull — The Drill That Changed My Stroke

You ever feel like your breaststroke just isn’t clicking the way you want it to?

Whether you're new to the stroke or grinding toward a PB, I've got something for you today that could make a massive difference.

Let’s dive into what I truly believe is the most important, most effective, and most overlooked drill in breaststroke— the Three Kicks, One Pull Drill

🔧 How It Works

This drill is all about efficiency — teaching your body to find and hold that perfect streamline position, minimize drag, and use each movement with purpose. That’s how the best in the world do it.

Here’s how to do it:

• Start with a full breaststroke stroke — one pull, one kick.

• As your feet finish the kick, you glide.

• Then take a second kick… and glide again.

• Then a third kick… and hold that body line.

• Only then do you pull again.

Sounds simple. But this is deceptively challenging — and that’s what makes it so powerful.

👀 What I Focus On (And You Should Too)

💡 Head position: Stay neutral. Eyes on the bottom of the pool. Ears tight to your arms. No looking forward.

💡 Body line: You want a slight downward angle — fingertips just lower than your hips. Think of slicing through the water, not plowing through it.

💡 Kick mechanics: The fastest breaststrokers — Peaty, Lilly King etc — all have a narrow, fast kick. Knees close, ankles snapping back behind your butt, feet whip in and snap together.

💡 Timing: This is the big one. There has to be a clean, distinct separation between the kick and the pull. Don't let them overlap. Drill this separation into your muscle memory.

🎁 Implementing the Drill: A Sample Main Set

Now let’s talk about how to actually train it.

The Three Kicks, One Pull drill isn’t just something I casually toss into warmup and forget about. This is a drill I intentionally program into my sets to help build efficiency, power, and timing — especially under fatigue. And that’s the key: doing it when it counts.

Here is a set I use to bring this drill to life.

Why this set? Because under fatigue, everything breaks down. You feel the drag, the dropped hips, the mistimed kick. You start to notice whether you're really squeezing your head between your arms or letting it drift.

That moment — when you're on rep 8, lungs burning, arms heavy — that's where you learn the most.

You’re not just training your body here — you're training your mind to stay calm and stay sharp when everything hurts. That’s what makes champions.

*If you want to challenge yourself , switch the 25s for 50s and change the interval to ~50 seconds.

🚀 The Big Takeaway

Whether your tempo is like Adam Peaty’s lightning-fast 1.0 or more of a smooth 1.6 like Anton Chupkov, the common denominator is hitting and holding the perfect line. This drill gives you the time and awareness to do that — and do it right.

Use it as:
✔ A technical check-in during warmups
✔ A challenge set at race pace

It’s not about swimming harder — it’s about swimming smarter.

Until my next newsletter, I will see you all - later