Why Are There Only 4 Swim Strokes?

Over hundreds, even thousands, of years, humans have perfected the art of swimming and figured out the fastest way to move through the water, leaving us with the four competitive strokes: Butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle.
But the strokes we see the pros doing today have come a long way from their humble - and slow - beginnings. Who invented butterfly? Why are there only four competitive strokes? Can just anyone make up a stroke these days? Let’s dive into the history of each swim stroke and how they came to be the official racing lineup for swimmers around the world.
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[@Neotenico]

My mom swam competitively when she was in school and specialized in butterfly. She was basically the only person at her school that could perform the technique, and the only person in her school district that did it well. She tried to teach me butterfly growing up but I never had the coordination to get the overhead pull and kick timing right, so I just flailed around in the water. I never learned butterfly but at least my mom got some laughs out of it.

[@Jenavee26]

Your mom be like, "😂 we tried"

[@justanotherpiccplayer3511]

Yeah it's very rhythmical, I find that butterfly requires a lot of energy to get to the point where the rhythm and the stroke is like,,, flowing and not so awkward, and when you reach that point you just absolutely go like a train

[@matthancock9883]

Crawl is a stroke. While freestyle is an event - where swimmers are free to swim any style.

[@chrispaulus4491]

I had a high school teammate swim butterfly for the 500 freestyle. He won. Later that season, he went on to win the state championship in the 100 butterfly in the state of Ohio. 😮

[@tomcarpenter6]

​@@chrispaulus4491was it Austin Staab?

[@chrispaulus4491]

@@tomcarpenter6 Dave Valega. I believe there was only one division of swimming back in Ohio in 1982.

[@iMadrid11]

TIL I though freestyle is a style of swimming stroke. The actual name is front crawl stroke.

[@mickymickymike4105]

Didn’t know this. I always called the crawl stroke the freestyle. I just got into swimming and am loving it. My breathing and strokes get better everyday. I’m more comfortable doing the butterfly with fins on than any other stroke. I hate the backstroke and never really do it.

[@dalenesbitt]

You got the rule wrong on freestyle. You can change strokes up. As long as you don't pull on a lane marker, push off the bottom, swim completely submerged (past 15m off the wall), or get out of the pool, you're legal.

[@ArthurSavage]

You are right. I think it is only in the medley the free stroke can't change within the race, and can't be one of the other strokes already done in the IM.

[@harmonicarchipelgo9351]

Great, now we just a super-freestyle where you can swim underwater if you want. I just want to know who the fastest swimmer is and I don't really care if they are above or below water. No pushing off the bottom is a good rule because it simulates infinite depth and makes it all about the water. Lane markers are even more obvious.

[@HughCStevenson1]

@@harmonicarchipelgo9351 And get rid of the artifically slow strokes - why would anyone do them?

[@RK11111111111]

@@HughCStevenson1 I kind of agree. Though, the breaststroke is actually a very useful stroke outside of the sterile race environment. It isn't a coincidence that Londoners didn't want to put their heads underwater ;) The butterfly, is hard to rationalize. Though, the freestyle looks more like a dolphin kick than a crawl these days, especially in short 25yard pools.

[@RaymondBarbour]

Correct! Just if you swim breaststroke you could get a DQ for being fully submerged SW 5.3 Some part of the swimmer must break the surface of the water throughout the race,...

[@robohippy]

Best thing about allowing back strokers to to a standard flip turn was eliminating the 'suicide turn. Saved a lot of injuries.

[@KILLKIDspeedrun]

I remember bonking my head twice and always being scared about it, I still hate backstroke though because I can't see where im going

[@gingerhiser7312]

Table top turn.

[@finlaywilliams4746]

The suicide turn, or cross over turn as we call it in Gb is still used on a back to breast turn

[@Dazaisupremacy08]

@@KILLKIDspeedrun i always count my strokes from the flag

[@ThiagoSilva-gb2iv]

@@Dazaisupremacy08 for me that's super unreliable, since i can't tell if i'm at the same speed all the times, and a simple prediction is not enough to keep me at ease that i wont either bonk my head or crush my fingers at the wall

[@gengis737]

My father taught me side stroke, when school only taught the 4 official swim stroke (breast, back, front and butterfly). I consider side stroke should be the basic teaching: it keeps your neck aligned, your sight forward and above water and your mouth and nose free to breath all time, requires much less efforts and coordination than front stroke and is much faster than breaststroke. I can swim miles in side stroke, changing side every few hundred meters. Also, it's much more silent and stealth than the other strokes when swimming close to birds or shore animals. And as said in the video, you can conveniently hold a weight or another swimmer while doing side stroke.

[@BoredDan7]

Ya, I know where I grew up we were taught all sorts of strokes including side stroke and elementary backstoke. The point of teaching non comp strokes is it teaches you to be comfortably moving around in the water in different ways. This is great for recreational swimming and just being comfortable in the water. Personally I find myself doing elementary backstroke a lot as I find it the most relaxing, often rotating into a side stroke as I near where I want to go, rotating fully into a breast stroke for longer distance.

[@jmodified]

Plus it's good if, like me, you're prone to bursitis.

[@gengis737]

@@jmodified Yes, also when quality of water is dubious, your eyes are safe

[@Xloi63]

It is a safety stroke, part of the Red Cross program (now Swim For Life in Canada), and essential for escaping an undertow. I always make sure to teach it to my advanced students

[@nya___nya]

Imagine an Olympic swimmer accidentally discovering a time machine and being transported back to the early 1900s and joining the Olympics at that time. They must've thought he is a merman with the skill he have.

[@Masivigny]

Sad but true: The two native american swimmers swam significantly faster than the Europeans with their new frontcrawl. As this however challenged European race superiority over native Americans, they kept on racing the native Americans vs fresh Europeans. Eventually at the third race the tired native Americans lost to the Englishmen. This was used to justify European superiority, and hence - of course: as otherwise would mean conceding defeat - the breaststroke was kept on as the main swimming style.

[@briseboy]

Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku won freestyle in the early 1900s. I will not look up the exact dates, but the variant crawls/freestyle period may have been involved.

[@biazacha]

Good ol eugenics, amirite?

[@placate9051]

​@@biazacharacism*

[@rani.andretti]

​@@biazachahuh? Eugenics??

[@HkFinn83]

‘Sad but true’, or sad and not true at all.

[@khinweepang]

Freestyle isn't a stroke. Freestyle means anything you want. People just tend to use the fastest stroke (i.e. "front crawl" or "arm pull") in freestyle competitions. It's like calling a buffet "orange chicken" (i.e. "let's go for some orange chicken" when you mean to go for a buffet). People just tend to get orange chicken at buffets, but a buffet technically means a crapload of whatever you want to eat.

[@pineapplesareyummy6352]

An even better question is why is there only one "stroke" in running? Why do running backwards, skipping, and hopping with both feet together not contested in athletics?

[@Multicommentormentor]

I’ve wondered this too! Although I guess hurdles might count, kinda?

[@billyhills9933]

What about the 3-legged race? You and a mate master it in junior school but then you find there's no professional future in it.

[@tylers6943]

Why do anything other than the fastest method? Swimming seems like the outlier here to me.

[@drdickenbalz]

Each stroke in swimming has a different benefit, there's no point running a different way because running normally is optimal for everything.

[@billyhills9933]

@@tylers6943 Have you seen the cycling? The 'follow a moped around the track for a few laps' is a strange race.

[@gatorbait9385]

As someone that played a lot of video games from a young age, I knew what freestyle meant from a young age. I asked my dad why they only swim the same style every time if it's a freestyle race, and he said that's just what the stroke is called... So I lived with that for a few years and then when I was a teen I learned they CAN swim anything during freestyle and finally proved my dad wrong.

[@richardkeller4892]

I find butterfly the hardest, but a woman swam across Lake Ontario doing butterfly so there must be a more efficient way of doing it.

[@MagnumLoadedTractor]

Free style BUT when you're learning to breathe on the right side instead of the left it messes with your muscle memory real good

[@samanderson7745]

I remember a coach I had about 30 years ago say that the American crawl was similar to the front crawl except that you always kept your head out of the water. I remember at least one session where we did only that stroke for the whole session. Everyone was gassed after about 200 meters and we nearly mounted a revolt against the coaches so we could go back to other strokes. I even said that I'd rather do the fly.

[@mikestrohm3271]

Still used today but it is called head up crawl specifically for Life Saving

[@lajohnson1ly]

Also for water polo.

[@bobbybobman3073]

Everyone knows fly should have been called cry. Hands down hardest stroke if you ask me. I'd argue it's the most technical and the most physically demanding, that being said for a sprint distance it's really fun when so much of your body is out of the water. I'd love to see someone so their ironman swim doing fly. That being said I have a scarring memory of racing the 200 fly as an 11 year old, and that might be the only time I wondered if I was going to have be rescued by a life of course my goggles came off in the first 50. All and all if you think any stroke other than fly is hardest, I'd like to see how you find a shirt big enough for your shoulders.

[@DominikaHare]

My big shoulder muscles are crying. They are still big even after I retired years ago. Thankfully no issues finding shirts tough.

[@garyweiss1876]

Another interesting video on the inception and evolution of the main swim strokes. I like your narration style supported by quick moving videos. Well done!

[@swartchalk6745]

I was a pretty good swimmer as a kid, did ok in some school events, but let me tell you I could never do butterfly it somehow seemed like the most exhausting swim event ever. A mere 50 m butterfly race would knock me out for the whole day.

[@spacee.oddity]

“Old school” backstroke is literally a drill we do in practice/warm-down but we just call it double arm backstroke

[@anderspuck]

In freestyle you can do almost whatever you want. You can change styles during the race if you want to. At least in the Danish interpretation of the rules.

[@seiti1]

The hardest is butterfly, but it also is my favorite to do and watch. It's just so beautiful. I love it, despite the fact that I, recently, injured my left shoulder doing it, but I've already recovered. Also, I don't think it's common, but I love doing the doing the dolphin kick.

[@casualartist4202]

definitely not, breast is significantly more difficult to do properly. butterfly may have a higher skill floor with its strength demands, but breast stroke is undeniably more difficult because of how technical it is.

[@LilacMorelli]

@@casualartist4202it’s not harder, it’s easier (coming from a coach and swimmer)

[@casualartist4202]

@@LilacMorelli maybe in terms of the physical condition required to swim it, but in terms of how fast you can go with it, breast is the most difficult stroke to break a minute in the 100 with. doing breaststroke well in competition requires a lot more technical proficiency than other strokes.

[@Lucas_2705]

@@casualartist4202 I personally find breaststroke as the easiest stroke, however, everyone is different and no two bodies are the same so your strengths could easily be my weaknesses (eg my backstroke is atrocious as my legs always sink lol)

[@casualartist4202]

@@Lucas_2705 my kick is absolutely awful, and my technique in general isn't good, I'm carried mostly by my raw upper-body strength. in strokes like free and fly you can get away with mediocre technique if you have the strength for it. breast and back it's significantly harder to. my 50 free is a 23.7 and my 100 fly a 1:02.2, but my 200 im is still a 2:25 as a result of the skill gap.

[@stormeagle]

holy sticks this is an amazing video about history of swim style. for me, butterfly was the most easiest and breastroke was the hardest to get it right .

[@myswimpro]

Glad you enjoyed it! Breaststroke is definitely one of the more technical strokes!

[@johnwayne-kd1pn]

Butterfly makes most people look clumsy, so, probably by far the hardest. But those who master it, you say "wow" when you see it, so..

[@Koalaster]

the old version of backstroke is actually very relaxing and if you do it right it can be very fast

[@bro748]

6:34 Sounds like what we call 'elementary backstroke.' Personally I can't wait till corkscrew is added to the competitive stroke lineup.

[@lajohnson1ly]

Rich, concise summary of the development of competitve strokes. I had learned a fair amount of this from digging on my own - if your video had been around I'd've saved hours! Especially liked the depictions from ancient & historic art & drawings and examples from world culture. Mentioning the Japanese & native Americans contributions was important. Really fine work. Note to the know-it-alls: she explained the distinction between "crawl stroke" and "freestyle" and your "corrections" were specious. I live in Iowa City, where Armbruster coached. One of the club teams here sponsored the Armbruster Open, and their coach was a finalist in the Barcelona Olympics 200 fly. One of the entrants in the 1500 free swam all butterfly.

[@char_the_shark]

Really great video! The evolution of the strokes make a lot of sense. I'm curious if elementary backstroke evolved similarly from backstroke. Thanks!

[@oscarearthrowl1646]

either way swimming is amazing

[@shannondent7052]

I concur!!!

[@TheSpacecraftX]

What is the cause of sidestroke being in common use in lifesaving and military but not in professional swimming?

[@Catthepunk]

I was thinking. Maybe because it's easier to breath and also drag someone with?

[@marcelrossi9526]

Great video, thanks! And how cool to see lots of footages taken in Thanyapura, one of my fav pools out there!!!

[@myswimpro]

Glad you liked it! One of our favorites too :)

[@maartenkos98]

In the Netherlands we call it the Breast Crawl (borstcrawl). But only if you talk about it referring to swimming lessons or recreational swimming. When there's a race on tv or in the pool we refer to it as Free stroke.

[@nadiabairamis3854]

Nothing beats the beauty of the butterfly stroke, i guess the difficulty is the price you pay!

[@hunterzilla9385]

Man I really loved learning about how people evolved to stroke better.

[@r12e5p]

Freestyle is the event; Front crawl is the stroke

[@ashwinrao82]

Great video! Always wondered about the 4 strokes, now I know.

[@TL-mc6lz]

I love doing side stroke or the old school back stroke at the end of my work out to cool down and stretch out, but I never see anybody else ever doing it!

[@theunpopularcuber9554]

Based on my knowledge teaching the main strokes (plus elementary backstroke and sidestroke), the hardest to learn would actually probably be sidestroke. No idea why, but the people I've taught can't do it very well. Of the main strokes though, they've had the most trouble with butterfly, as would be expected.

[@fpupesh]

butterfly is the hardest especially for people with limited shoulder mobility. it's also very difficult from a coordination point of view. the easiest must be back then breast then crawl

[@harish123az]

This is one of the most interesting and well done video on youtube, thank you

[@myswimpro]

Wow, thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!

[@philipchin3589]

swimming solo or small group with a single style stroke in open water is quite dangerous , normally i mix these strokes to allow constant surveillance of 360 degree including below body watch, breast stroke allows 180 degree and below water forward and your legs can be attacked from behind, side stroke allows wider than 180 degree and you can see your legs but the back is unguarded , backstroke is slow but you cant see what goes below water and your head is leading unguarded, frontcrawl stroke is fastest and your view is allowed to forward and below water front and both sides but your legs are unguarded open for attack all the time , butterfly is quite useless except scaring off some sealives it causes too much noise and sharks mistake it as good food, butterfly is more a indoor pool fitness sort of training, it looks stupid and consumes too much power

[@urfinjuice1437]

And why are there only 4 swim strokes? I could not find the answer in the video. That was actually what I was interested in.

[@harish123az]

Guessing because these 4 are the most efficient ones, others are way slower while being way less efficient in terms of energy expended and breathing, etc

[@dalenesbitt]

@@harish123az Nope. Side stroke is actually one of the most efficient out there, which is why militaries teach it. It's just not very fast.

[@harish123az]

@@dalenesbitt Ah, i stand corrected, thank you for letting me know

[@adebankeobianwu4726]

great job on the video it shows the evolution of swimming and how different it was back in the day

[@TheEulerID]

There is an argument that the only pure competition style is freestyle as the only aim is to finish the course first. In athletic running events, style is entirely irrelevant; all that matters is that you finish the distance before anybody else does without any artificial aids (we will leave aside running shoe technology issues...). You could hop if it made you faster. As for the walk, then that's entirely artificial and extremely controversial. They've even banned monitoring on slow motion as it showed virtually all the competitors were "lifting" and breaking the laws so they just ignored that. It no doubt annoys the walkers a lot, but it simply doesn't have the public interest or prestige of the running events.

[@daniedits9030]

i don’t do swimming but i have friends who do and i try to do butterfly and WOW. that literally almost took me out…idk how they do it but freestyle and breast stroke r definitely the easiest strokes to do when a decent form.

[@fkeopfkeop]

In a freestyle event you may use any type of stroke. Most use crawl style in an freestyle event.

[@harish123az]

I think everyone uses front crawl in freestyle, because its the fastest swimming form by a long distance, anyone using any other form will come last

[@jim23mac]

I think this account doesn't give a fair account of how the English reacted to the Native American swimming styles. The English were obsessed with rules and fairness and codifying what was allowed - and - as you has said - there was already a rule about not submersing your head during a swim. The fact they invited (presumably) two Native Americans from Canada to compete in the competition I think demonstrates that there was a good degree of open-mindedness and acceptance of other cultures' approaches to sport and competition. The fact they didn't immediately adopt the style that was clearly faster, is probably less due to them dismissing foreign ideas and more to do with the fact that they were locked into their own codified ideas of what was actually allowed in a swimming competition.

[@varoonnone7159]

What we take for granted is the product of years and centuries of refinement

[@doublestrokeroll]

I love swimming the elementary backstroke for some reason. Not as a competitive thing. Just the feeling of it.

[@AlexSmith-gr4hp]

I’m familiar with the four competitive strokes as well as sidestroke and lifesaving backstroke both of which are used in lifesaving. Butterfly sucks. However, what I’ve found interesting over the years have been the multitude of different rhythms and kicks within freestyle. There’s sprint techniques and long distance techniques and they can be fun to play with.

[@paiwanhan]

I have the real running stroke and the rocket stroke. In running stroke you literally do all the moves in running but horizontally. In rocket stroke you hold your arms before your head, uae your legs to propel you forward as well as rotate the entire body on the horizontal axis over and over again. Each time you are facing up you can take a breath. Neither are fast, but they are a lot more fun than any other strokes.

[@carlo99channel70]

Very interesting video, thank you for doing the research!

[@Tinil0]

I despise the butterfly with all of my being. Ever since I was a kid I have had 0 back flexibility (I MUCH later found out I have AS which helps explain it). You know those fitness tests you did yearly in PE in the US? One of the exercises was trying to lift your torso off the ground while prone. I can't do that. Not "I can't do that well", I straight up lay there, straining, not lifting myself even a mm. I obviously can't lay on my stomach when sleeping either. Trying to learn butterfly as a kid was almost torture because I would lay in the water face down and just...not move. Obviously, I eventually had to give up completely. It sucked man.

[@DominikaHare]

Ah, I am a 13/10 on the flexibility spectrum, so Butterfly was a piece of cake for me. I couldn’t do breast style because my knees would bend to much, I spent years trying to master it, but it was for naught. Can’t have to little or to much of a thing, sadly. You need to be “just right”.

[@Tinil0]

@@DominikaHare Man, aint that the truth.

[@mikestrohm3271]

Funnily enough there are no 50m Olympic pools. All Olympic pools are actually 50m and 4cm. But when they mount the timing boards that register when a swimmer touches (which are 2cm thick) then the pool becomes 50m

[@maximilianisaaclee2936]

Surprisingly, the backstroke is the hardest for me to learn, I can never swim straight on my back. While butterfly is the most tiring, I love swimming it because it's fun, I use it as a form of exercise to burn calories. When I'm really tired I'll go for either the breaststroke or freestyle.

[@nicoz4122]

Butterfly is the worst... Especially during training. When I was young, when the coach announced a 8x50 butterfly, we were all like whyyyyyyyyyyy ? I personally enjoyed breakstroke. But the 200m breakstroke in a 25m swimmingpool was just a nightmare. The 125 to 175m distance is wher ethings gets fuzzy, breath short and every slide a torture.. Wow such memories !!!

[@jukori]

I like backstroke the most - it looks so simple and elegant when done right :)

[@nightwingaven69]

Any competitive swimmer will tell you Front Crawl and FreeStyle are not the same. Front Crawl is the name of the stroke. Free Style is the even you use it in. It's that simple and there is no other way of looking at without denying definitions of words...which I guess if very common in today's world anyway

[@drakestallworth3621]

Nobody calls it front crawl anymore. At least in the states. If a coach tells you a set is free, and you start doing fly, ur gonna get scolded

[@lajohnson1ly]

Given the great quality of your video, I have a suggestion for another: a brief history of pool dimensions for competition. 20, 25, & 55 yd pools in the US vs. the rest of the world with 25m & 50m pools. Andrew Carnegie and Sen. Charles Grassley. The 1924 Summer Olympics in LA: 50m pool set as the standard. Why world records are recognized in SC & LC meters but not yards.

[@mikestrohm3271]

Funnily enough there are no 50m Olympic pools. All Olympic pools are actually 50m and 4cm. But when they mount the timing boards that register when a swimmer touches (which are 2cm thick) then the pool becomes 50m

[@captainmcface9393]

According to FINA: "SW 5.1 Freestyle means that in an event so designated the swimmer may swim any style, except that in individual medley or medley relay events, freestyle means any style other than backstroke, breaststroke or butterfly." We were told, at officials training, that "any style" is to be be interpreted as literally any way you want to swim, as long as you don't break any of the other rules. Dog paddle, side stroke, backwards crawl, you name it. As far as I'm concerned you can indeed switch style during the same race as you please. The only time these rules are put to the test, though, is in races with very young competitors, in which case I've seen a lot of interesting styles being used, and I am probably yet to see more of them 😂

[@mrmacross]

"Only" four strokes? You could argue that there only needs to be one open event for each division.

[@Aritul]

This is fascinating! Thank you for the video.

[@youngpotters8242]

I didnt even know that they have changed backstroke like that. I must try it

[@nimuil]

Great video! a lot of home works, thanks 🙏

[@kevinvibora]

Great video! Short and concise.

[@bluntandy]

If you listen to Louden Wainwright's "swimming song" youll hear that the freestyle stroke was once called the Australian crawl.

[@blindleader42]

4:40 But what I want to know is what ever happened to the canon ball in Olympic Diving competition.

[@Maria_Sikora]

Amazing! Do you have any book recommendations on the history of swimming? Thank you! @MySwimPro

[@eddy7067]

Nice research video.

[@thibod07]

Wow! Very nicely put together video! Once we look at the video it all make sense that the first official stroke was the breast stroke! The butterfly arms with the breast kick seems so cool I will try it next time I swim. Thank you for producing that video! 👍👍👍

[@minimooster7258]

S

[@minimooster7258]

Wwweẁssw

[@klikitzsmith8416]

This stroke should definitely exist, not difficult at all. Dam straight

[@PlaySA]

I believe I created, or at least independently discovered, the most efficient swimming stroke possible. It is kind of like a jellyfish on your back. You float on your back, put arms out to your sides or a little higher, push down hard and scissor kick with your legs. Then coast. Then repeat. You can cover large distances with very little effort.

[@7Ninelle]

i remember that being called elementary backstroke when I was little, I was hoping she would cover it.

[@Ahrimas]

Not too different sounding to the sort of backwards breaststroke I liked to do as a kid.

[@lajohnson1ly]

I was a Red Cross Water Safety Instructor back in the day. We taught this decades ago as a survival swimming technique in open water. The action with the hands is called "sculling".

[@emilwandel]

Dolphin and butterfly are different styles. Butterfly has the dolphin arms and breaststroke legs. At least that was I tought. I don't know why this always mixed up.

[@dovesr0478]

So the name of the stroke is front crawl, which is used in freestyle events because it's the fastest stroke and people want to win.

[@drakestallworth3621]

But practically, its called free. No one calls it crawl anymore

[@WingsOfADream1]

I do not care how you get there if you are the fastest. you can combo things, mix and match, pair, splice... even have a choreographed dance of moves start to finish... so long as your the fastest your the winner.

[@xyzcv5]

Backstroke is my weakest stroke. I don't get how everyone I swim with says that it's easier than butterfly.

[@henryproebstel7334]

i Really enjoyed this, but i feel a little annoyed that it never really answered the question of why are there only 4 strokes. why isn't elementary backstroke contested? why isn't sidestroke contested? it just said they weren't but why not?

[@Amsepamse]

Freestyle: you can swim however you want as long as you're not submerged (in the first 15m off the wall you can be submerged). It does not need to be any of thee legal strokes. In medley, the last quarter of the race can be anything except the three other legal strokes

[@gingerhiser7312]

A new coach asked me which stroke I like the most. I replied, "IM."

[@Conrad75]

If all you're doing is swimming for leisure, breaststroke is the easiest stroke in existence imo. I could breastroke at a snails pace for hours and hours on end and I'm the farthest thing from being fit.

[@spiritualpath8888]

Butterfly,breast stroke, side stroke (right and left), back stroke, front stroke.

[@gengis737]

An afterthought: why is it forbidden to race underwater? There are much more efficient breaststroke moves or combined arm/breaststroke and legs/butterfly moves when swimming underwater. This should be authorized in true freestyle.

[@robohippy]

Well, a few points here. I swim the over arm side stroke. The woman you show swimming it is at about level 1. I might be at level 8 or so at least for mechanics. Head down in the water like freestyle, and a gallop type arm stroke, so not an even cadence, and body position is pretty much identical to what is used for the 1 arm drill. 4 beat kick which is a steady 1, 2, 3, 4, then repeat, not like the 4 beat freestyle kick. One coach told me it looked like I was swimming freestyle on my side. Close. Under arm does the full length breast stroke pull out stroke. The reason the trudgen was dropped was because it was slower, and the improves speed with freestyle came from dropping the scissor kick. The scissor kick does generate lots of thrust, but also creates HUGE amounts of drag. I figured that out when I accidently slipped into flutter kick on some all out one length sprints. I took 3 seconds off of my 50 yard time in 3 days, just from switching. I noticed that when I would use the scissor kick, I would come to an almost complete stop in the water, and this is similar to what happens in breast stroke, though the whip kick is more efficient than the scissor kick. In my research on the OAS, they said that it was dropped from competition prior to the 1900 Olympics and the much slower breast stroke was added. Possibly it was a 'demonstration' event and not 'official'. Only record of the OAW was set in 1895, so 128 years ago. A swimmer from Great Britain swam 100 yards in 1:02.5. Freestyle at that time was some thing like 1:01.2. No question about it being faster than breast stroke. As far as I am concerned, it is faster than back stroke as well, and the closest stroke to it in terms of speed is the fly. Bring back the OAS! Oh, it is a long axis stroke, so of course, flip turns.

[@PhiyackYuh]

Show us your strokes mate. Its all blah blah blah.

[@robohippy]

@@PhiyackYuh I plan on doing a video set about the over arm side stroke (OAS). At present, I can't just take a cell video and post it because I don't know how. Brief description. Every one has done the 1 arm pull drill, This is basically flutter kick on the side, but rotation is not the point, the arm pull is. So, if you are swimming on your side with a flutter kick, and that is another drill, for one length of the pool, or even a full lap. Then swim a length doing the dog paddle stroke, which is what you do for the breast stroke pull out stroke, but since you are on your side, you pull horizontally rather than vertically. Same with top side arm. Then combine them. The combat swim side stroke is pretty close, except both arms stay under water to be more stealthy. It is a combination of a bunch of drills, far faster too...

[@fredlar9421]

I wonder if the breaststroke is really slower (that much) than the other 3 strokes if allowing underwater dolphin kicks as many as you want within 15 meters.

[@Frooti.loopz23]

This is so cool

[@manuellopes3690]

Freestyle is not a stroke, when you do a freestyle race, you are allow to choose your stroke. The reason you see the front crawl, it is the fastest.

[@ramonek9109]

Only head above the water breaststroke is taught in Germany. It is very unusual for Germans to be able to swim any other way. I am talking about the general public of course. Athletes might swim all strokes. I had to teach myself to swim efficiently in freestyle when I was an adult.

[@RustyRacer]

Using the argument: "that's not what it is called", is invalid if it is widely used as a name for the stroke. You would have to somehow prove that nobody 'calls it that' - which they obviously do. I've swum it for over 30 years and never once heard it called crawl. It's similar to petrol v gasoline; both are used as names and neither is "wrong" simply because a different group uses a different name.

[@galaxyperson4129]

Nice vid

[@markmorash1682]

Ah, the 200 fly isn't so bad... until the 2nd 100 begins and God begins placing and invisible piano on your shoulders. IMO

[@wolfbuysse2698]

"After the original French text was translated to English it became the most popular in europe" I 'm prety sure in1696 that French was still more popular acros europe than English

[@gabscar1]

Thanks!

[@earthvix]

i dont even know how to swim and yet im watching!!

[@nancytripp2024]

A History lecture, this session may be called 'Odds of Swim' (likewise BBC Sport recently has just done the documentary 'Gods of Tennis')

[@varoonnone7159]

I can float on my back and do some beaststrokes to awkwardly go around 😅

[@HeatherLandon227]

I used to do some competitive swimming back when I was younger, but nowadays, if I'm just swimming, to swim.. I avoid backstroke big time. I hate it. Can't see what's in front of you at all. I prefer Breast and free-style. I also like to just do a dive underwater and just swim under the water like a mermaid.

[@revazbakuradze8338]

Why is there alarm going on background? I wake up to that every morning, please stop

[@MachoMandem]

Butterfly: hardest to elegantly perform

[@McCarthyPark]

Stroke? No. The hardest event? Is definitely The 400 IM. Most Olympic swimmers hate the event.

[@uchi9]

Definitely agree with Fly being the most hardest and butt kicking when working out, but it is so beautiful to watch when being done properly. I'm not very good at my Flies and resulted in some lower back pain for a few weeks, I hope to improve my form one day because I like dolphin kicks.

[@SimaoNunes-lq4se]

why would/should there be more?

[@gusvanwes6192]

Free stroke is not free stroke as well. You're not allowed to stay under water for the whole length. There should be a just do whatever you want to be the fastest category and it should be the only category

[@thisishowthetruthdies684]

Not to be contentious but I've always felt that having different strokes in swimming competitions is as silly as having a hopping 100m race in track and field. Fastest should be fastest without artificially created restraints, pure and simple.

[@jimmyrh247]

Face out of the water breast stroke really comes into its own in water where serious diseases may well be present. Perhaps an awareness of Weil's disease, etc contributed to Europeans' reluctance to swim otherwise in rivers and lakes.

[@gengis737]

I find side stroke superior to breast stroke to keep your face away from water (except for the ears)

[@Alaxion]

Interesting this video did not talk about racism whatsoever despite it being a pretty big reason for why front crawl took so long to be integrated. Some other comments go into detail about this.