Human Swimming - Technique

Technique

See also: List of swimming styles

Swimming can be undertaken using a wide range of different styles, known as 'strokes', and these strokes are used for a different purposes, or to distinguish between classes in competitive swimming. It is not necessary to use a defined stroke for propulsion through the water, and untrained swimmers may use a 'doggy paddle' of arm and leg movements which mimics the strokes of quadruped animals such as dogs in the water.

There are four main strokes used in competition and recreation swimming, which are front crawl, breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly. Competitive swimming in Europe started around 1800, mostly using breaststroke and in 1873 John Arthur Trudgen introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native Americans, but substituting a scissor kick for the traditional flutter kick in order to reduce splashing. Butterfly was developed in the 1930s and was at first a variant of breaststroke until it was accepted as a separate style in 1952.

Other strokes exist for specific purposes, such as training or rescue, and it is also possible to adapt strokes to not use parts of the body, either to isolate certain body parts, such as swimming with arms only or legs only to train them harder, or for use by amputees or those suffering paralysis.

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