Swimming is movement through water using one's limbs, and usually without artificial apparatus. Swimming is an activity that can be both useful and recreational. Its primary uses are bathing, cooling, fishing, recreation, exercise, and sport.
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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.
Some occupations require the workers to swim. For example, abalone- or pearl-divers swim and dive to obtain an economic benefit, as do spear fishermen.
Swimming is used to rescue other swimmers in distress. In the USA, most cities and states have trained lifeguards, such as the Los Angeles City Lifeguards, deployed at pools and beaches. There are a number of specialized swimming styles especially for rescue purposes (see List of swimming styles). Such techniques are studied by lifeguards or members of the Coast Guard.
Swimming is also used in marine biology to observe plants and animals in their natural habitat. Other sciences use swimming, for example Konrad Lorenz swam with geese as part of his studies of animal behavior.
Swimming also has military purposes. Military swimming is usually done by special forces, such as Navy SEALs. Swimming is used to approach a location, gather intelligence, sabotage or combat, and to depart a location. This may also include airborne insertion into water or exiting a submarine while it is submerged. Due to regular exposure to large bodies of water, all recruits in the United States Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard are required to complete basic swimming or water survival training.
Swimming is also a professional sport. Companies sponsor swimmers who are at the international level. Cash awards are also given at many of the major competitions for breaking records.
Professional swimmers may also earn a living as entertainers, performing in water ballets.
Essential travel by swimming over brief distances is frequent when alternatives are precluded. Innumerable migrants swam across rivers and seas, famously across the Rio Grande, and the Bug. There are known cases of political refugees swimming in the Baltic Sea,[1] and of people jumping in the water and swimming ashore from vessels not intended to reach land where they planned to go.[2] Swimming travel is central to the plot of the motion picture "Welcome". In the 1980s thousands of retreating Iraqi soldiers swam across the lower Shatt al-Arab.[3] US president John F. Kennedy led his sailors swimming island to island after his torpedo boat was sunk in World War II. His senator brother Ted Kennedy claimed to have left Chappaquiddick Island by swimming.
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.[4]
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."
In recent years there has been a growth in the popularity of open water swimming, also known as "wild swimming" partly due to the publication of best-selling books by Kate Rew and Daniel Start.
The aquatic sport of swimming involves competition amongst participants to be the fastest over a given distance under self propulsion. Different distances are swum in different levels of competition. For example, the current Olympic Swimming program contains freestyle events of 50m, 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, and 1500m; 100m and 200m events in each of backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly; 200m Individual Medley (that is, 50m butterfly, 50m backstroke, 50m breaststroke, and 50m freestyle); 400m Individual Medley (100m butterfly, 100m backstroke, 100m breaststroke, and 100m freestyle); and the Marathon 10km. Most high schools swim the following distances: 50m Free; 100m Free, 200m Free, and 500m Free, 100m Backstroke, 100m Breaststroke, 100m Butterfly, and 200m IM. 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 USA Swimming.
A style is also known as a stroke. "Stroke" can also refer to a single completion of the sequence of body movements repeated while swimming in the given style.
Several swimming styles are suitable for recreational swimming; many recreational swimmers prefer a style that keeps their head out of the water and has an underwater arm recovery. Breaststroke, side stroke, head up front crawl and dog paddle are the most common strokes utilized in recreational swimming. The out-of-water arm recovery of freestyle or butterfly gives rise to better exploitation of the difference in resistance between air and water and thus leads to higher speed.
It is possible to swim by moving only legs without arms or only arms without legs. Such strokes may be used for special purposes, for training or exercise, or by amputees and paralytics.
There are many risks associated with voluntary or involuntary human presence in water, which may result in death directly or through drowning asphyxiation. Swimming is both the goal of much voluntary presence, and the prime means of regaining land in accidental situations.
Most recorded water deaths fall into these categories:
An adult with fully developed and extended lungs has generally positive or at least neutral buoyancy, and can float with modest effort when calm and in still water. A small child has negative buoyancy and will either sink rapidly or have to make a sustained effort to stay near the surface.
Hypothermia and dehydration also kill directly, without causing drowning, even when the person wears a life vest.
Less common are
Around any pool area, safety equipment and supervision by personnel trained in rescue techniques is important. It is required at most competitive swimming meets, and is a zoning requirement for most residential pools in the United States.[5]
Children are often given swimming lessons, which serve to develop swimming technique and confidence. Children generally do not swim independently until 4 years of age.[6]
In Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Estonia and Finland, the curriculum for the fifth grade (fourth grade in Estonia) states that all children should learn how to swim as well as how to handle emergencies near water. Most commonly, children are expected to be able to swim 200 metres (660 ft) – of which at least 50 metres (160 ft) on their back – after first falling into deep water and getting their head under water. Even though about 95 percent of Swedish school children know how to swim, drowning remains the third most common cause of death among children.[7]
In both the Netherlands and Belgium swimming lessons under school time (schoolzwemmen, school swimming) are supported by the government. Most schools provide swimming lessons. There is a long tradition of swimming lessons in the Netherlands and Belgium, the Dutch translation for the breaststroke swimming style is even schoolslag (schoolstroke). The children learn a variant of the breaststroke, which is technically not entirely correct. In France, swimming is a compulsory part of the curriculum for primary schools. Children usually spend one semester per year learning swimming during CE1/CE2/CM1 (2nd, 3rd and 4th grade).
In many places, swimming lessons are provided by local swimming pools, both those run by the local authority and by private leisure companies. Many schools also include swimming lessons into their Physical Education curricula, provided either in the schools' own pool, or in the nearest public pool.
In the UK, the "Top-ups scheme" calls for school children who cannot swim by the age of 11 to receive intensive daily lessons. These children who have not reached Great Britain's National Curriculum standard of swimming 25 metres by the time they leave primary school will be given a half-hour lesson every day for two weeks during term-time.[8]
In Canada and Mexico there has been a call for swimming to be included in the public school curriculum.[9]
Standard everyday clothing is usually impractical for swimming and may even be unsafe. Most cultures today expect swimsuits to be worn for public swimming.
Modern men's swimsuits are usually briefs, shorts or athletic cut jammers, lycra swim skins, lycra/spandex diveskins or diveskin jeans (for protection in open water swimming in ocean or lake environments). They can also be swim trunks, lifeguard trunks or board shorts. Usually, the upper body is left uncovered, or the swimmer wears a rash guard t-shirt or 2mm neoprene top for sun protection. In some third world cultures, custom and/or laws have required tops for public swimming.
Modern women's swimsuits are generally skintight, either two pieces covering only the breasts and pelvic region (see bikini), or a single piece covering these areas and the torso between them. Skirts are uncommon, and are usually short when included, but in some cultures they have been required even to the point of a full length skirt being necessary.
Competitive swimwear seeks to improve upon bare human skin in order to obtain a speed advantage. For extra speed a swimmer wears a body suit, which has rubber or plastic bumps that break up the water close to the body and provides a small amount of thrust—just barely enough to help a swimmer swim faster.
Wetsuits provide both thermal insulation and floatation. Many competitive swimmers, mainly men, lack buoyancy in the leg. A swimming wetsuit has very thin arm neoprene to aid flexibility and thick forelegs. This holds the swimmer in a flatter attitude in the water, and so their streamlining. This construction makes breaststroke rather inefficient (legs too rigid) but is perfect for frontcrawl/freestyle.
Swimming events have been selected as a main motif in numerous collectors' coins. One of the recent samples is the €10 Greek Swimming commemorative coin, minted in 2003 to commemorate the 2004 Summer Olympics. On the obverse of this coin a woman swimmer is depicted, preparing to dive from the starting platform, while in the background another woman athlete is just about to dive into the water in a scene from an Archaic bronze statuette.