Entry For Skills--Competitive Swimming--October 07

Entry For Skills
Swimming Training For October

Participants: Thomas

Overview:
- Techniques for Butterfly Stroke

Venue: Geylang East Swimming Complex (Mon, Wed)

Date: 10/9, 15/9, 17/9, 22/9, 24/9, 29/9, 31/9,
Hours completed: 14 hrs

After training for a month and concentrating solely on freestyle, the coach decided to switch to perfecting our butterfly stroke. It is the most difficult stroke to learn as it requires the coordination of the whole body. In order to compete efficiently, one must be able to perform the stroke with grace and power. Grace comes with swimming smoothly in the water and power comes with the leap out of the water to create the distance moved through the water.

Hence, in order to attain these 2 criterion, both the upper body and lower body must move in sync. Firstly, we started off by practising the movement for the upper body. The arms must thrust forward and move through 360 degrees. The whole arm should be kept straight and not bent. Our fingers must also be constantly kept closed together so that the swimmer would be able to pull off a higher leap out of the water and move a greater distance, hence gaining an advantage over the other swimmers. The lower part of the body must ensure that the hips are able to move like a wave or a dolphin and the feet must give a powerful thrust to help the body leap out of the water. Lastly, we practised the movement of our hips. Placing the pull buoy in between our legs, we moved our hips to swim like a dolphin. The common mistakes made in the techniques for butterfly stroke is one; the arms would always bent when we enter the water again after the leap, two;our feet would always separate, causing the swimmer to slow down tremendously and lastly; our fingers would sub-consciously be open and as a result pull off a smaller leap out of the water, thus unable to travel a greater distance in the water.

Nevertheless, we hav to consider the techniques used for the swimming