Swimming (Meaning and Explanation)

We explain everything about swimming, its history, the styles that can be practiced and its health benefits.

swimming - swimmer — Swimming is the practice of movement and movement in water.

What is swimming?

swimming It is the recreational or sporting practice of movement and displacement on water using only the arms and legs of the human body. It is also a technique that is learned as a survival method (in fact, it is taught in numerous educational curricula), and that is practiced as exercise given its multiple benefits to the body.

Its practice can be competitive or purely recreational. As a formal sport, it is one of the most practiced in the world, included in the Olympic disciplines and carried out in pools of different lengths (50, 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1500 meters). Specific swimming techniques are known as styles and they have particular names.

Swimming is possible given that the human body is slightly less dense than water, so it always tends to float. Our relationship with water is very particular, despite being terrestrial beings, since at birth we are extracted from a completely submerged environment such as the maternal womb.

In fact, babies show an innate tendency to swim and certain diving reflexes, such as automatic breath holding, decreased heart rate and reduced circulation to the extremities (it is the mammalian diving reflex).

Swimming history

Swimming has been practiced since time immemorial, and There is evidence of their knowledge in cave paintings that are more than 7,000 years old. It is also mentioned in texts from later times, such as 2,000 BC. C.: the Odysseythe Iliadthe Bibleetc.

Importance of swimming

Swimming is much more than a sports practice, it is also a skill and a technique that on many occasions can mean the difference between life and death. A good swimmer is more likely to survive certain maritime accidents, or falls overboard from boats (if they are conscious and able).

On the other hand, swimming is one of the most popular sports practices in the world. Provides a large number of benefits to the respiratory and circulatory system of the human being, as we will see later.

Swimming styles

swimming sport butterfly style — In the butterfly stroke, both arms move together towards the front.

There are numerous styles of swimming, some personalized or of little use, but generally there are four main styles, which are distinguished in competitions and are endorsed by the International Swimming Federation:

Breaststroke or breaststroke style Also known as “frog style,” because the human body's movements resemble those of certain amphibians, it consists of floating face down with the arms pointing forward and the legs slightly bent. The head is held out of the water to take in air and then the arms move in a circle under the water, propelling the body forward as the movement is imitated with the feet, contracting and stretching them in the same rhythm.
Crawl or free style This style requires the swimmer to be straight, lying on one arm that is submerged straight into the water, while the other emerges with the elbow bent and the palm extended downward, ready to enter the water. The head sticks out to the side to take in air, which is expelled when the torso submerges and turns to repeat the movement but with the other arm. Meanwhile, the legs move, relaxed, with the toes pointed and the feet turned inward, giving oscillating kicks.
Back or dorsal style A style essentially similar to the crawl, but face up, with the back submerged in the water, moving one arm in the air with the palm of the hand coming out from under the leg, while the other propels the body in the water.
Butterfly style A variation of the breaststroke style, in which both arms move together forward and backward underwater, propelling the torso forward, continuously and accompanied by an undulating movement of the hips, which submerges the head upon entry. into the water and culminates with a kick called “dolphin” due to its similarity to the swimming of these animals, using the feet together.

Health benefits

Swimming has both physical and mental health benefits, given that it is one of the most complete sports practices known, strengthening the almost complete muscles of the body and stimulating mental coordination and memory. Regular swimming as an aerobic sport is known to help with:

Lowering blood pressure and burning fat since the body must lose twice as many calories to stay warm: from the exercise performed and from being immersed in a colder liquid.
Improves and strengthens the cardiac and vascular system since it subjects the heart to continuous work coordinated with breathing, also increasing the athlete's lung capacity.
Relax the muscles by mobilizing almost all the muscles of the body in a coordinated way, without fixed positions for too long.
To the lack impact Like land sports, it allows you to strengthen your muscles without subjecting them to the stress of gravity.