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Competitive Swimming Techniques

Competitive swimming became popular in the 19th century. The goal is to break records while beating competitors. Typically, swimmers go through a training cycle of increasing then decreasing workload as they approach competitions. Tapering before important events gives the body rest without stopping exercise completely, and may include shaving body hair and skin to reduce drag and improve times. Swimming is an Olympic event where athletes compete in 16 recognized events in a 50-meter pool.

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Jitendra Pandey
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120 views1 page

Competitive Swimming Techniques

Competitive swimming became popular in the 19th century. The goal is to break records while beating competitors. Typically, swimmers go through a training cycle of increasing then decreasing workload as they approach competitions. Tapering before important events gives the body rest without stopping exercise completely, and may include shaving body hair and skin to reduce drag and improve times. Swimming is an Olympic event where athletes compete in 16 recognized events in a 50-meter pool.

Uploaded by

Jitendra Pandey
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Competitive swimming

See also: List of swimming competitions

Katie Ledecky set the Olympic records in 2016 for the 400m and 800m freestyle.

Competitive swimming became popular in the 19th century. The goal of high level competitive swimming is to break personal or
world records while beating competitors in any given event. Swimming in competition should create the least resistance in order to
obtain maximum speed. However, some professional swimmers who do not hold a national or world ranking are considered the best
in regard to their technical skills. Typically, an athlete goes through a cycle of training in which the body is overloaded with work in
the beginning and middle segments of the cycle, and then the workload is decreased in the final stage as the swimmer approaches
competition.
The practice of reducing exercise in the days just before an important competition is called tapering. Tapering is used to give the
swimmer's body some rest without stopping exercise completely. A final stage is often referred to as "shave and taper": the
swimmer shaves off all exposed hair for the sake of reducing drag and having a sleeker and more hydrodynamic feel in the water.
[10]
 Additionally, the "shave and taper" method refers to the removal of the top layer of "dead skin", which exposes the newer and
richer skin underneath. This also helps to "shave" off mere milliseconds on your time.[11]

World record holder and Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps in the 400 IM.

Swimming is an event at the Summer Olympic Games, where male and female athletes compete in 16 of the
recognized events each. Olympic events are held in a 50-meter pool, called a long course pool.
There are forty officially recognized individual swimming events in the pool; however the International Olympic Committee only
recognizes 32 of them. The international governing body for competitive swimming is the Fédération Internationale de
Natation ("International Swimming Federation"), better known as FINA.

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