ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SWIMMING

Swimming Stuff you wanna know

Now that is interesting…….

Swimming has been in the Olympics since 1896. The strokes were freestyle and breaststroke. Backstroke was added in 1904.

1940’s was when breaststroker’s found out that you can be faster if you bring both arms over the top of the water together. This was then banned, but because the butterfly stroke, which is now the 4^th swimming stroke used in competitions.

Stuff you need to know about competitive swimming:

1. Tumble turns: a forward roll, allowing the swimmer to push of the wall (end of the pool) and go to do another length. You cannot do tumble turns in an IM (If you do a backwards tumble from back to breast, then this does not count), breaststroke and butterfly.
2. Diving: For breaststroke, butterfly and freestyle you dive from the blocks. Only for backstroke you dive by holding the handles on the block, starting already in the water.
3. Negative split: A race strategy, where a swimmer swims the second half of the race faster than the first half.
4. The flags: Used when doing backstroke. When you see the flags you count how many arm strokes it is until you touch the wall, minus one arm stroke, and this allows you to tumble turn. The flags also indicate how far away from the wall, it is normally 5m. The flags are 5m from each end of the pool, two on each end.

Did you know?

Underwater Swimming first came about in the Paris 1900 Games. Competitors earned points for the length of time and distance they were underwater.

Johnny Weissmuller, the first man to swim 100 metres in under a minute, was just as famous out of the pool. He helped save the lives of 11 people when a boat capsized on Lake Michigan, and also played the role of Tarzan in films.

Thanks, Hollyxxx