Backstroke!

It's the only stroke you do on your back. No wonder it's called backstroke. Duh. It's basically freestyle on your back. The arms alternate in and out of the water pulling one at a time. The kick is a flutter kick just like freestyle only your feet are upside down.

Backstroke is a great recovery stroke. The DPS (distance per stroke) is the longest in back stroke. You go the farthest with the least effort. Also since your head always remains out of the water, you can breathe constantly. The more you breathe, the faster your muscles recover. When you get tired backstroke is a good idea.

One major flaw I've seen in people just learning the stroke is body roll. Every time a hand enters the water to start a pull, you should roll onto that side of your body. This will lengthen your stroke by 2-3 inches every time with no added effort. When you have 20 strokes every 25 yards, that's a big deal.

Another thing is the placement of the arm during the pull. Your arm should enter the water perfectly straight. From there, your arm should bend at a 90 degree angle so your hand is pointing directly away from your body. From that 90 degree angle then you throw your hand towards your feet as hard as you can. Then you simply recover out of the water and start over.

One big thing the pros do better than us is their ability to recover their arms very fast. That means their arms spend very little time out of the water. They spend more time pulling and less time recovering. There arms aren't symmetrical (they never make a 180 degree angle). The great swimmers' arms are often both in the water pulling at the same time(one finishing the pull and one starting). Two arms pulling means they go twice as fast.

Their start are also amazing. Take 26 seconds out of your day to watch this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0c8gIJHjGE
I'll talk about starts in a later blog! Next week, breaststroke.

Freestyle

There are 4 main strokes: freestyle, backstroke, butterfly, and breaststroke. So, it makes quite a bit of sense for me to make four blogs. One for every stroke. Here I'll describe the strokes, give some tips, and explain what makes the Olympians better than us.

Freestyle is the most common of the stroke. It is the fastest strokes. It is the stroke most people can do for the longest without stopping. If you fall into a river with a strong current, you're probably going to want to swim freestyle to get out of it. It's the 'aid you in not dying' stroke. Sounds like you should know about it.

Freestyle is characterized by being on your stomach. You alternate pulling your arm from in front of you to around your waste under water. Then the arm comes out of the water and is put back in the water in front of you. The arms alternate. When one arms is in front, the other is at the waste. When one arm is in the air, the other is in the water. A flutter kick is used with the arms. Your legs go up and down behind you. They alternate, one will go up when the other is going down. You breathe to the side, under your arm.

I hope you knew all of that already...
If not, then thank me later.

I've taught a few people how to swim in my years in the pool. Some problems are almost universal. People tend to swim uphill. Yes, it's possible! Kind of anyway. Swimming uphill is what us swimmers call when your shoulders are higher in the water than your hips. Your whole body gets out of line and your arms don't move you nearly as far as they should. You fix this by swimming with your chin so far down that it almost touches your chest. That lowers your shoulders and raises your hips. Another problem is that people forget to kick. You should always be kicking, and kicking hard. It's something that took me a long time to do. Your fingers should not be apart. You don't row a boat with a rake. Close your fingers. One last thing is that you want to be able to breathe from both sides of your body. You can get shoulder and neck problems and even lip tension from breathing out the same side every time. It takes practice, but it's worth it.

There are some people cool things the pros do. You think of freestyle as a stroke where you pull backwards with your arms. If you watch closely, you'll see that the best swimmers hands exit the water ahead of where they entered, even after pulling backwards. This is because their kick is so strong, and their pull moves so much water. You move forward by pushing water back. Some pros will go entire lengths of the pool without breathing. Usually in sprints. Breathing hurts hydrodynamics slightly, so it slows you down. These swimmers' cardiovascular systems are crazy. If you watch them yourselves you'll see many more amazing things.

Next blog we'll have backstroke! Keep reading!

Wake up people!

There are more swimmers out there than Michael Phelps. You'd never know it with the way the media covers swimming. Sure none of our other swimmers have gotten as many gold medals, but that doesn't mean we don't have to pay attention. Michael has gotten bigger than the sport and that is absolutely wrong. I'll tell you about some other men and women you should be aware of.

Ryan Lochte is an American swimmer. He's a world record holder and an Olympic gold medalist. He's known for his backstroke, but also does the IM and freestyle relays. He's probably next next most popular male swimmer out there. He's a little more relaxed and low-profile compared to Phelps (but who isn't?), but Phelp's would have as many golds with Ryan's help on relays.

Aaron Peirsol is another reason Phelps got his medals. Aaron is a pure backstroker. He's won numerous gold medals, including every backstroke gold medal in 2004 at Athens. He starts off the medley relay where Phelps does fly.

Natalie Coughlin is a very accomplished female athlete. She has 11 Olympic medals and holds many American records. She's apparently a great cook, because she prepared an Asian dish on the Today Show. She also announced that she is going to be in the next season of dancing with the stars.

Dagny Knutson is another huge bright spot in the swimming world. She's a 17 year old senior and she broke Katie Hoff's American record in the 400 IM. Had she swam that time in the Olympics in 2008, she would have been 5th. Oh, by the way, she's also from Minot, North Dakota. I've had the pleasure of swimming with her hundreds of times. She's incredibly humble. She's almost as humble as she is hard working. She does two-a-days every day and sometimes adds land practices onto that. A year or two ago I could say that I could keep up with her... Not so much anymore. She is on the fast track to success. She's amazingly successful in the pool, and was just voted high school homecoming queen. How's that for prospective? There she is in front of the pool she and I have swam in for ages.

That's just a few of the athletes. There are many more that are worth mentioning, but I don't wanna go on for forever. Yes, Phelps is fantastic, but he's not the only people we need to be cheering on.