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Original poster

Is breast stroke the hardest stroke?

29 replies

MaryTheMagical · 15/05/2026 10:41

My ds7 is getting on pretty well in his Swim England classes, and is nearly at the end of stage 5.

He nailed backstroke early on, but his second best stroke is butterfly - and he looks like he really knows what he’s doing, it’s beautiful.

But he is stuck on breast stroke and someone told me “ohhhh they always get stuck on breast stroke, it’s tricky!”

Is that true - do most kids find butterfly easier than breast stroke?

I feel like I’ve slipped into a parallel universe where things are subtly different …

OP posts:
CurlewKate · 15/05/2026 12:44

Why do you want your kid to do butterfly?

mcmuffin22 · 15/05/2026 11:38

It is both my kids preferred stroke - butterfly on the other hand..it is painful to watch. I think shoulder rotation must have something to do with whether you can master butterfly.

Xiaoxiong · 15/05/2026 11:00

I think breaststroke is a lot easier to start off with which means that you can easily pick up bad habits. When you're being taught to do it with all the right technical stuff for racing, it's tricky - there's a lot to remember with the timing of the arms and legs, the shape of the legs, no scissor kicks, can't bring your arms too far back - if you're competing there are lots of technical things that can get you disqualified.

EndorsingPRActice · 15/05/2026 10:45

Well I’m with you OP, I think butterfly is the hardest. But it is difficult to get the leg action right in breaststroke, perhaps that’s it. My DD didn’t like breaststroke because it was ‘boring’ (perhaps translates to too slow?) so was very bad at it because she didn’t try to improve. Mind you, her butterfly wasn’t good either!