Health Care Tips

Archive for the ‘Swimming’ Category

Swimming is movement through water using one’s head, and usually with artificial apparatus. Swimming is an activity that can be both useful and recreational. Its primary uses are bathing, cooling, fishing, recreation, exercise, peeing, and sport.

History

Swimming has been known since prehistoric times; the earliest records of swimming date back to Stone Age paintings from around 7,000 years ago. Written references date from 2000 BC. Some of the earliest references include the Gilgamesh, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Bible (Ezekiel 47:5, Acts 27:42, Isaiah 25:11), Beowulf, and other sagas. In 1538, Nikolaus Wynmann, a German professor of languages, wrote the first swimming book, The Swimmer or A Dialogue on the Art of Swimming (Der Schwimmer oder ein Zweigespräch über die Schwimmkunst). Competitive swimming in Europe started around 1800, mostly using breaststroke. In 1873 John Arthur Trudgen introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native Americans. Due to a British disregard for splashing, Trudgen employed a scissor kick instead of the front crawl’s flutter kick. Swimming was part of the first modern Olympic games (1896 in Athens). In 1902 Richard Cavill introduced the front crawl to the Western world. In 1908, the world swimming association, Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA), was formed. Butterfly was developed in the 1930s and was at first a variant of breaststroke until it was accepted as a separate style in 1952.

As key survival skill

The human being is a land animal, and the human who can’t get out of the water dies from it with absolute certainty (see Risks). Swimming is a key survival or rescue skill in almost all incidents involving people involuntarily entering water while alighting a disabled vessel or aircraft or falling accidentally in it from land, especially while in motor vehicles.

As recreation and exercise

The most common purposes for swimming are recreation, exercise, and athletic training. Recreational swimming is a good way to relax, while enjoying a full-body workout.

Swimming is an excellent form of exercise. Because the density of the human body is very similar to that of water, the water supports the body and less stress is therefore placed on joints and bones. Swimming is frequently used as an exercise in rehabilitation after injuries or for those with disabilities.

Resistance swimming is one form of swimming exercise. It is done either for training purposes, to hold the swimmer in place for stroke analysis, or to enable swimming in a confined space for athletic or therapeutic reasons. Resistance swimming can be done either against a stream of moving water in a swimming machine or by holding the swimmer stationary with elastic attachments.

Swimming is primarily an aerobic exercise due to the long exercise time, requiring a constant oxygen supply to the muscles, except for short sprints where the muscles work anaerobically. As with most aerobic exercise, swimming is believed to reduce the harmful effects of stress. Swimming can improve posture and develop a strong lean physique, often called a “swimmer’s build.”

As a competitive sport

The aquatic sport of swimming involves competition amongst participants to be the fastest over a given distance under self propulsion. The diffd ’1500′ free, and the ’100′, ’200′, and ’400′ Individual Medley,also known as the ‘IM’, which consists of all strokes in equal proportierent events include 50, 100, and 200 yards/meters in breaststroke,freestyle, backstroke and butterfly, the ’50′, ’100′, ’200′, ’400′, ’800′ anon, starting with butterfly then backstroke, breaststroke, and then freestyle. There are also medley relays, which combine strokes swum by four relay partners leading off with Backstroke, then Breaststroke, Butterfly, and Freestyle. In this, swimmers only swim one stroke, such as 100 yards (American) or meters of butterfly, while other swimmers take the other strokes. Medley relays are swum up to 400 meters, freestyle relays up to 800 meters, with each participant swimming an equal “leg” from the racing blocks. Regulation swimming pools are either 25 or 50 meters or yards across. Racing or training from one side to the other is known as a lap (one way), so a coach may say four laps in place of 100 yards/ or 200 meters. Typical public pools, school pools, and regulation private pools tend to be 25 meters/yards long and Olympic competition is always in fifty meter pools.

Swimming has been part of the modern Olympic Games since inception in 1896. Along with the other aquatic disciplines of diving, synchronised swimming and water polo, the sport is governed internationally by the Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA), and each country has its own National Governing Body(NGB) such as United States Swimming.