The pullout is the only part of breaststroke where you travel faster than you can ever swim, and most swimmers treat it as a rest before the work starts. It is the opposite: the one place in the race where speed is handed to you, to spend or to throw away.
I swam the 200 individual medley at two Olympic Games and won the Pan American title in that event in 2015. The breaststroke leg comes third, so you reach it already in debt. That is where I learned to respect the wall.
What is the breaststroke pullout, and why does it decide so much of the race?
It is the legal underwater sequence after the start and every turn: a glide in streamline, one arm pull down to your legs, one dolphin kick, then the hands recovering forward into your first breaststroke kick and the breakout. A study on the characteristics of the breaststroke pullout in elite swimming, which analysed races from the "World Championships 2015, 2017, 2019 and Olympic Games 2016", puts the stakes plainly: "The underwater phase has been identified as the most important determinant of start and turn performance, as this is when the swimmer is traveling fastest."
It is the most important part because it is the fastest part, and mistakes at high speed cost more than slow ones. A short course 200 breaststroke has eight of these, one off the block and one off each of seven walls.
What does the rule actually allow in a pullout?
One downward dolphin kick, taken before your first breaststroke kick, and a head that surfaces at a defined moment in your second stroke. The World Aquatics swimming rule quick reference infraction sheet, in force as from 13 March 2026, lists the infraction as "More than one downward butterfly kick prior to first breaststroke kick after the start or turn".
Notice what it does not say. It caps you at one kick and sets a deadline, the first breaststroke kick, but never tells you where in the pull that kick belongs. A lot of pool deck arguing is about a rule nobody wrote.
The second line matters as much: "Head did not break the surface before the hands turned inward at the widest part of the second stroke after the start or turn". Your deadline is not a distance, it is an event inside your own stroke. Get greedy underwater and what catches you is your own second pull.
Should the dolphin kick come before or during the arm pull?
Almost everyone at the top kicks first and pulls second, and the evidence does not crown one version as best. A study on variability in the underwater pull-out technique in 200 m breaststroke turns reported that "All swimmers except one performed the arm pull-out after the dolphin kick."
The elite pullout study sorted the choices into three named techniques, Fly-Kick First, Combined and Pull-Down First, then refused to pick a winner: "This study found no significant difference in terms of performance outcome with respect to each of these techniques, indicating that technique selection should be guided by one's individual preference." It added a caution worth repeating: "Male and female swimmers should not be coached adhering to the same technical model."
So the pullout to copy is not the one you saw on television. Start from kick first, pull second, and treat the overlap as a variable you test rather than a commandment.
How long should I hold the glide before I start the pull?
The published guidance here is genuinely vague, and I would rather say so than invent a number. There is no accepted table of glide durations, and the glide is not fixed even within one swimmer. The 200 m turn study found "HCA identified three coordination patterns that were distinguished by the timing of the dolphin kick relative to the arm pull-out and the duration of the glide with arms at the side."
It also reported something you can feel in your own racing: "LMM showed a linear decrease (from the first to the last turn) in the time gap between the end of the dolphin kick and the start of the arm pull-out". The glide between kick and pull got shorter as the race went on. Whether that is adaptation or fatigue, the authors do not say, so neither will I.
Use the mechanism instead of a number. A glide only pays while you are moving faster than you would be swimming, so once you drop below race speed, every extra tenth underwater is a loss you cannot see. Glide while you are fast, pull when you stop being fast, and expect that window to be longer off the start than off the last wall of a 200.
Why does my breakout feel slower than my pullout?
Because you are ending the pullout and then starting to swim, instead of letting one become the other. The pullout does not finish with your hands at your hips, it finishes with your first stroke already at full speed.
Three things cause the stall, in the order I see them from the deck:
- The hands recover wide and slow, parking a flat surface in front of you at the moment you are fastest.
- The kick arrives late, after the glide has decayed, so there is nothing left to add to.
- The head comes up to breathe before the arms have done anything, dropping the hips and turning the breakout into a climb.
Fix them in that order, and let the head leave the water because the stroke pushed it out rather than because you lifted it. My guide to how to swim breaststroke covers that timing on the surface, and the underwater dolphin kick post covers the kick itself, since the one you get here has to count.
What drills actually fix a breaststroke pullout?
A pullout set worth doing weekly:
- 8 pullouts from a push with no swimming after, marking where you stop, holding a flatter line instead of sinking and climbing
- 6 x 25 taking the pullout then breathing on the first stroke, no exceptions, so the breakout stops being a lunge for air
- 8 pullouts with the kick deliberately early, then 8 with it late, timing both, to find your own overlap instead of copying one
- 4 x 50 off a wall at race effort, the only instruction being that the second pullout looks like the first
That last one is the test that matters. A pullout that is beautiful when fresh and falls apart on the final wall is not a technique, it is a demonstration.
How do I know whether my pullout is costing me time?
Time the underwater, not the length, because the length hides it. Have someone start a watch as your feet leave the wall and stop it as your head breaks the surface, then note where you surfaced. Do it six times, take the fastest three, change one thing, and run it again. The swim pace calculator shows what those tenths add up to over your race distance, and my post on how to pace a 200 IM covers what the walls do to a multi stroke race.
The hard part is that you cannot see your own pullout. You feel it was scrappy without knowing whether the streamline came apart, the kick came late, or the head led the breakout. A coach reads all three in one repetition, and most adult swimmers do not have one.
Outside the current supported analysis: breaststroke pullouts. SwimRead is a swimming video review app, currently in beta. It supports short, side-view freestyle recordings, shows which automatic measurements are available, and keeps a history and chosen training focus for each swimmer. It does not grade technique or establish that a specific error was detected. Video stays on the phone; technical measurements and body-landmark coordinates are sent as described in the Privacy Policy. Join the beta waitlist for an invitation as places open.