More Swimming Technique

 

The backstroke and the crawl, or freestyle are the easiest of the swimming strokes to learn and often the first territory for beginners. In the backstroke, you alternate a flutter kick with your arms as they make a motion that looks like a windmill. As you improve your swimming techniques for the backstroke, you will probably need to learn to move both of you arms with equal strength. What happens sometimes with beginners is that they swim more to one side because one arm is stronger than the other.

In the backstroke, you also have to remember to roll your body back and forth from side to side, as it is this movement that completes the power of the stroke and moves you forward. Because you are on your back, this stroke might feel a little strange at first but if you can do the freestyle, you can also learn to use the same swimming techniques while on your back.

The freestyle and the crawl are the same stroke and people use either word to describe it. Today you more often hear it referred to as freestyle, especially if you are watching competitions on television. It is one of the swimming techniques which everyone learns as a beginning swimmer. It uses the same windmill arm stroke and flutter kick just like the backstroke, but you are swimming on your stomach and not on your back.

In the freestyle, the legs kick alternately and the arms also alternate in the windmill motion. What is hardest for most beginners is not that these swimming techniques are difficult but that your face is in the water and you have to coordinate your breathing with the movement of your arms and legs.

Benefits of swimming

Swimming is one of the best sports for staying fit. Because the water makes it low impact, you don’t develop many of the joint problems that can come from other sports, such as running. That means you can continue to swim throughout your entire life.

When you start learning swimming techniques that allow you do more in the water, you will find that your cardiovascular system benefits greatly from this exercise. It improves the strength of your heart and also helps your heart to use oxygen more efficiently. Another benefit is that swimming builds muscle mass or lean muscle tissue. Because of the resistance of the water, you will start building muscles.

It is rare to have a sport, such as swimming, that is as all-encompassing in improving and maintaining cardiovascular and muscle health. For instance, running and bicycling are great for the legs but do little for the upper body. Rowing is another sport, like swimming, that gives a total body workout.

Water workouts are often recommended for athletes who have injuries. The low impact of the water can help them stay fit and help the injury to heal at the same time. Swimming is also recommended for weight loss, because once you learn the proper swimming techniques, you can burn as many as 600 calories in an hour of swimming.

Swimming is also an ideal sport because even if you don’t live near a lake or the ocean, you can find an indoor pool just about anywhere. You can go to a YMCA or a health club/gym that has a pool, and if you travel a lot, it is no problem at all to find a hotel, motel, or resort with a year-round indoor pool. Many schools and colleges also have pools that are open to the public.

If you have thought swimming might be a good sport to learn, you are definitely on the right track. In just a few lessons you can pick up enough swimming techniques to be swimming on your own and improving your health at the same time.