Know your strokes!

The Play Times went through the history books to find out how the different swimming strokes came about!

 

 

The origins of the breaststroke dates all the way back from the Stone Age with images, pictures and drawing of variants of breaststroke being found in place from Egypt to even Babylonian and Assyria.

 

The breaststroke is the oldest recorded stroke in the history of swimming and in it can be said to be first introduced in Colymbetes, the first swimming book ever written which was written in 1538 by Nicolas Wynman, a German professor.

 

The breaststroke was the main stroke used in competitive swimming in Europe during a pre-Olympic Era and most if not all British swimmers used Breaststroke.

 

 

Front crawl, known to the general public as Freestyle, is the fastest stroke in all of swimming. Its origins date all the way back since the ancient times. It made its first recorded appearance in 1844, where North American swimmers used it to defeat their British counterparts who were using the breaststroke.

 

A man name John Arthur Trudgen first learned of this stroke from South American swimmers during a trip to Argentina sometime in 1873 and his variation of the front crawl used a different kick from the flutter kick and was named the Trudgen stroke.

 

The Trudgen stroke was then further modified by top Australian swimmer Richmond Cavill who got his inspiration from Alick Wickham, a young man who swam a popular version of the front crawl in Sydney and this modified version of the front crawl came to be known as the “Australian crawl”.

 

Finally, the variation that is the closest to the front crawl that is used around the world today is the “American crawl” that was created by American swimmer Charles Daniels who made modified the “Australian crawl” to use a six-beat kick.

 

 

The fly stroke, more widely known as the Butterfly is the second fastest stroke in all of swimming, just behind the front crawl. This stroke was initially created to deal with the problem of increased drag because of the extra time needed for underwater recovery in the breaststroke. And by modifying the breaststroke to bring the arms over the water, the Butterfly was created by David Armbruster.

 

Jack Seig, a swimmer also at the University of Iowa then improved the Butterfly by adding the dolphin kick, which is similar to the motion of a fish tail and also for the swimmer to swim it facedown to David’s version.

 

Both David and Jack realized that the combination of their two technique created a very difficult to learn and execute yet fast and efficient style.

 

 

The backstroke is the second stroke to be swum in competitive swimming and is very alike the front crawl/freestyle stroke. This stroke has originated since ancient times and has the same strokes as the freestyle but just that the swimmer would be on his or her back.