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Ten years ago, Kosuke Kitajima was by far the best at the breaststroke pull-outs. At 5’10″ that is a pretty impressive feat. What was it that made him better than everyone else? No, not his illegal dolphin kick. Even after 2005 when FINA legalized the dolphin kicks in the pullouts, he was still ahead of the rest as shown below. This was the 2008 Japanese Olympic Trials. You can see he makes over a half body lead just with the start.
In an interview he mentioned that he would shrug his shoulders during the pull-out. This lessened his drag profile and helped him go farther and faster. He no longer has that edge as all world class breaststrokers shrug their shoulders now.
It seems bizarre that people were doing something seemingly simple in a sub-optimal fashion. This inspired me to look at the regular streamline. Is it done optimally?
I asked a former teammate to get into the best streamline position he can, later I asked him to shrug his shoulders while in the streamline position. There is a pretty evident difference between the two.
Firstly, he was able to improve his drag profile by making his streamline longer and narrower.
Secondly, he was able to eliminate the space between neck and shoulders which decreases the surface area of skin to water contact, and thereby decreases friction resistance.
I also tried the two streamlines and although the difference is not as obvious my drag profile is improved with the narrowing of my streamline
I encourage you to play with this idea as well and for those interested here are the various scapula movements and their names.
