The Four Strokes

People from all around the world with no age barrier enjoyed swimming for many years; either you are a beginner or a competitive master swimmer or either you are swimming for enjoyment, exercise or regular basis training.
There are four main strokes in Swimming and namely they are freestyle, butterfly, backstroke and breaststroke and these four strokes are used on all levels, from swim competitions at your local swim club to the Olympics (Herman, 2011).

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A bit from history: How it all started

The history of swimming runs back to the Egyptian times dating 2000 B.C. , and it is found that Egyptian art found from  that era exhibits swimmers performing a certain style similar to the freestyle (Barlowe, 2011). Moreover same article describes Assyrian stone carvings also show swimmers performing a style similar to the breaststroke. Furthermore according to Barlowe (2010), the interest of swimming showed by Japanese during 1603, the Emperor Go-Yoozei made school children compete in swimming races. In addition in 1800s British started Swimming as a competitive sport in Europe.

Freestyle

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Free style which is also called the front crawl stroke is the fastest and the most common stroke of all four. This stroke is easily recognized by the alternative arm strokes and swimmer rotating head side to side for breathing (Seltzer, 2011). When swimming this style your face have to be down in the water and your arms are moving in a windmill motion and legs are kicking up and down alternatively (Herman, 2011). When consider the hand motion the elbows are bend a bit when the hand is outside the water and one hand move above water to the front while the other

pushes back in the water.

Backstroke

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This stroke is similar to free style in a way that your arms and legs move, but here you will be facing up in a floating position instead of facing down in the water. Therefore this also known as the back crawl a flipped over version of front crawl and here swimmer use alternative arm motion, up and down flutter kick and breathing is not big deal since the swimmer will not be entering the face in to the water (Seltzer, 2011). 

Breaststroke

Breaststroke is the slowest among the four and the force is provided by the legs and arm which will remain under the water. This stoke is also a face down stroke where both arms do the same movement at the same time by moving the hands straight out in front of your body circling them out to the side and then back again (Herman, 2011). While the arms working in a large heart shaped the legs will be brought together straight near to your body and kick away from your body together at the same time with the hands.               

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Butterfly

This is the most challenging stroke among the four and it is also called as dolphin stroke. Here your face will be again down in the water and arms will be moving together in a shape of a butterfly wings, while your legs doing a up and down kick similar to dolphin’s tail (Herman, 2011).

Reference list

Barlowe, B.(2011). History of Swimming Strokes. Retrieved from

                http://www.livestrong.com/article/347359-history-of-swimming-strokes/

Barlowe, B. (2010). Origins of Swimming. Retrieved from

                http://www.livestrong.com/article/34577-origings-of-swimming/

Herman, J. (2011). What are the four strokes in Swimming? Retrieved from

                http://www.livestrong.com/article/378883-what-are-the-four-strokes-in-swimming/

Seltzer, G. (2011). Types of Swimming Strokes. Retrieved from

               http://www.livestrong.com/article/406196-types-of-swimming-strokes/