The History of Swimming

What is known about the history of swimming, other than the fact that it has been a means of relaxing, keeping fit and burning calories? Well, early cave paintings suggest that swimming is something that has been practices since the Stone Age.

Early Swimming Strokes

The history of swimming shows that swimming strokes have evolved since the 19th century. The overarm sidestroke evolved from the sidestroke, where one arm was recovered above the water for

increased speed and the legs were squeezed together in a rather uncoordinated action.

John Trudgen developed a style that used a hand-over-hand arm action, and was then named the trudgen. It was introduced in England in 1873 after he copied the stroke from South American. Each arm recovered out of the water as the body rolled from side to side and the swimmer performed a scissors kick with every two arm strokes. Over time this stroke developed into front crawl where variations of leg kick included different multiples of scissors kicks and also flutter kicks.

Over the years science has played its part in the analysis of swimming strokes and swimmers, and in particular competitive swimmers look for adjustments in their technique in order to gain advantages in speed and efficiency.

Front Crawl

The inefficiency of the trudgen kick led Australian Richard Cavill to try new methods. He used a combined of an up-and-down kick with an alternating overarm stroke. This stroke became known as the Australian crawl and indicative of the modern day front crawl.

Breaststroke and Butterfly

The history of swimming tells us that until the 1950s, the breaststroke was the only stroke with a required style. The underwater recovery of both arms and legs in the breaststroke creates a large frontal resistance making it the slowest of the four basic swimming strokes.

In 1934 David Armbruster devised a double overarm recovery out of the water. This "butterfly" arm action gave more speed but required greater overall body strength and power. Then in 1935, Jack Sieg developed a style of swimming on his side, kicking his legs in unison like a fish tail. This then developed further to a face down leg action. Armbruster and Sieg combined the butterfly arm action with this leg action and learned to coordinate the two with two kicks to each butterfly arm action. This kick was named the dolphin fishtail kick.

Even though the butterfly breaststroke, as it was called, was faster than the breaststroke, the dolphin fishtail kick was declared a violation of competitive rules. For the next 20 years, champion breaststrokers used an out-of-water arm recovery (butterfly) with a shortened breaststroke kick. In the late 1950s, the butterfly stroke with the dolphin kick was legalized as a separate stroke for competition. Many swimmers say the "wiggle" is the key to the stroke and that a swimmer who can undulate through the water naturally can more easily learn the butterfly. (Source - The Washington Post)

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