Mechanics of Swimming

Emily Chuang
Mechanics of Swimming The crawl, also known as freestyle, is often regarded as the fastest swimming style. The legs perform a fluttering movement called the flutter kick to propel the body from behind while the elbows take turns moving in a semicircle movement in the swimming direction. One arm relaxes while the other is driven forward. The head is to be kept down in the water when not breathing. To breathe, the head turns sideways out of the water and air is to be taken in by the mouth not nose. The backstroke, also recognized as the back crawl, is a type of stroke where the swimmer cannot see in which direction he/she is swimming towards which makes it difficult to tell when nearing the wall. The knees are kept underwater and slightly bent while the feet kick making small splashes. The continuous movement of the legs is what keeps the body floating and moving. The arms positioning is parallel to the arm positioning used in the crawl except in reverse. The breaststroke is acknowledged as the slowest stroke however it can be swum powerfully with speed. Similar to how a frog swims, the knees are bent and then the legs push out straight and clap together in one swift movement. During this time the arms are placed right under the surface of the water stretched forward with the palms faced upwards, they are then fanned out in opposite directions (right arm goes right, left arm goes left), and then stretched forward again. When the legs and arms move together in the same rhythm the head naturally bobs up and down, in and out of the water. When the head comes out of the water that is when the mouth is used to take a breath. A sidestroke is less known swimming technique due to the fact that it is not used in competitions. It is a swim stoke swum on the sides. The body should float on one side with legs extended. The bottom arm is to be extended in the water while the upper arm rests flat on the side of the body. The arm stroke cycle for this stroke is,