Welcome

This site has been made to fulfill the requirement

 E-LEARNING subject (ITE 3543) 

in MARA Professional College Indera Mahkota

The objective of writing this blog:

#To expose to the public about the history of Swimming#

#To share with the readers about successful athletes who involve in this sport#

#To tell the audience about the right techniques for swimming#

Healthy Swimming Tips

• DO NOT swallow the water! (Remember: it's everybody's bath water and chlorine does not kill all germs.)

• Wash your hands and bottom thoroughly with soap and water after a bowel movement or changing diapers. (Germs on hands end up everywhere, including the water.)

• Keep an eye on your child at all times. (Remember, kids can drown in silence.)

• Protect your skin against sunburn by using a sunscreen with at least SPF 15 and both UVA and UVB protection, and be sure to re-apply it after swimming. (Even a few serious sunburns can increase the risk of getting skin cancer.)

• DO NOT allow your child to chew gum or eat while swimming or playing in the water. (Chewing or eating while swimming could cause choking).

Tips For Advanced Swimmers

• Good swimming is about using the core of the body; your hips, stomach, lower back, and chest. Top swimmers roll the core of the body from one side to the other, while keeping the head fixed, as if rotating the body on a spit. When you rotate like this, you can reach further forward on each stroke and maximize your stroke efficiency.

• The key to good backstroke is a still head.For this exercise, balance your goggles, or a plastic cup with some water in, on your forehead and swim slowly for five minutes.

• Get your hands on some Zoomers (swim fin). These short flippers are fantastic for building up leg and stomach muscles, will enable you to move faster through the water and allow you to concentrate on that perfect arm action.

Swimming Tips for Beginners

• Arm Strength : Stretch out in the water and make as long a streamlined shape as you can. On all strokes, lengthen the arms, shoulders, back and point your toes. Each time you make a stroke, concentrate on stretching out the body and reaching for the end of the pool before making each arm pull especially during breaststroke.

• Balance: As an exercise, push off the wall in a tight arrow - as tight as you can - and float as far as possible in this position. Do it again and aim to go further each time you do.

• Breathing: Use breathing to help you relax and bring rhythm and balance to the stroke. When you breathe on front crawl, your mouth should more or less follow your shoulder. Swim gently and breathe every two, then three, then four strokes. For a challenge, swim eight lengths continuously using this breathing pattern.

• Movement: Good front crawl and backstroke swimming starts with improving the kick. Kick from the hip, with your knees hardly flexed and your toes pointed.

Tips To Develop Your Swimming

• Start and finish each session with a smile on your face.
• There are two important principles that apply to everyone in the world who swims in water.
  • Water is 80 times more dense than air, so being stronger in the water will not necessarily help. Being streamlined through the water is the single biggest improvement you can make. Streamlining is the holy grail of all swimmers, skiers, Formula 1 cars and America’s Cup yachts.
  • Swim faster than you normally do and take more rest! If you are doing more than 4-6 lengths without stopping, you are doing too much! Swim two or four lengths at a time, harder than usual, then rest.
• The reason people feel frustrated with swimming is because they don’t know how to improve. Swimming requires skill and that skill needs to be practiced.
• It appears odd, but swimming fewer lengths, with more rest, but at a slightly higher level, will have a far more beneficial impact on both technique and general fitness for the period of time you are in the water, than just swimming up and down non stop.
• Remember it’s nothing to do with how far you swim, but how well you swim

All Time Favourite Athletes

JOHNNY "TARZAN" WEISMULLER

The world's best swimmer during 1920's

He won 5 Olympic gold medals as well as a bronze medal. Plus, he also set 67 world records and has never lost a single swimming race, retiring from his swimming career undefeated.

DAWN FRASER

The greatest female swimmer in the world, being the first woman who swam the 100-meter event in less than a minute

She shot into international fame at the Melbourne Olympics held in 1956 when she broke the 100-meter freestyle record, which was set 20 years back by Willy Den Ouden

Just 18 years of age, she won 3 medals from her first Olympic games.

IAN THROPE

An Australian, Ian Thorpe has won 5 Olympic golds as well as 11 gold medals in the World Championships

He has been nominated four times as the World Swimmer of the Year by the Swimming World International magazine

JENNIFER BETH THOMPSON

She has won 12 Olympic medals, which includes 8 golds, while she represented the United States in the Summer Olympics of 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004.

 She is the most decorated Olympic swimmers in history.

MARK SPITZ 

Born in 1950, he has won 7 gold medals at the 1972 Olympics held in Munich, setting world records in all of the seven events.

 He is one of the all time greatest athletes, he was named the swimmer of the year in 1969, 1971, and 1972. 

Plus, the Sports Illustrated Magazine voted him one of the greatest Olympians and the athlete of the century in 2000. 

In addition, the International Olympic Committee has named him as one of the 5 athletes of the century.

MICHAEL PHELPS

He is a holder of world records in a number of events. Amongst his achievements are the 8 medals he won at the Summer Olympics of 2004 held in Athens, of which 6 were gold. 

He was named the World Swimmer of the Year in 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2007.

Suitable Swimwear

HERE ARE THE EQUIPMENTS NEEDED FOR A SWIMMER 




SWIM SUIT

• The suit covers the skin for modesty. Competitive swimwear seeks to improve 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 in which just barely enough to help a swimmer swim faster. 

SWIM CAP

• A swim cap keeps the swimmer's hair out of the way to reduce drag. Caps may be made of latex, silicone or Lycra

GOGGLES

• Goggles keep water and chlorine out of swimmers' eyes. Goggles may be tinted to counteract glare at outdoor pools. Prescription goggles may be used by swimmers who wear corrective lenses.

SWIM FINS

• Rubber fins are used to help kick faster.

The Swimming Techniques

There are a few techniques that have been invented and here are the right techniques ;

BACKSTROKE

• The backstroke (back crawl) is one of the four swimming styles. This has the advantage of easy breathing but the disadvantage is the swimmer not being able to see where there are going.
• This swimming style is similar to an upside down front crawl. 
• Both backstroke and front crawl are long-axis strokes. 
• The techniques that need to be used for this skill are ARM MOVEMENT, LEG MOVEMENT, BREATHING, BODY MOVEMENT, START, TURN AND FINISH.

BREASTROKE

• The BREASTSTROKE is a swimming style in which the swimmer is on her or his chest. 
• This is the most popular skill for this technique due to its stability and the ability to keep the head out of the large portion of water.
• This techniques is being teached to the beginners as to make them adapt with the style of swimming but in competitive swimming, BREASTSTROKE is considered as one of the most difficult strokes, requiring comparable endurance and leg strength to other strokes. 
• However, this stroke is the slowest compared to others.
• The flow of the techniques can be seen through ARM MOVEMENT, LEG MOVEMENT, BREATHING, BODY MOVEMENT, START, TURN AND FINISH and STYLES

BUTTERFLY STROKE

• The butterfly swimming stroke is being done by swum on the breast with both arms moving simultaneously. 
• The butterfly 'kick' is also known as "dolphin kick" in this skill. 
• This strokes is more difficult because it requires a good technique to be feasible.
• Instead of that, it is the hardest for younger swimmers because very strong shoulders are needed to be developed by months and years to practice.
• This skill requires few techniques which are ARM MOVEMENT, LEG MOVEMENT, BREATHING, BODY MOVEMENT, START, TURN AND FINISH and STYLES.

Background and History of Swimming

Have you heard about the history of swimming? Here, I want to share some information about swimming. Swimming has been founded by English people in urban society during the 18th century. During that period, swimming competitions were being held in London's six artificial pools, this competitons were organized by the National Swimming Society in England and then has been expanded and being monitored by the Amateur Swimming Association of Great Britain where there received 300 members for the first phase.

In 1896, swimming become an olympic sport for men with 100 metres and 1500 metres freestyle competitions held in open water. Soon after, as swimming gained more popularity more freestyle events were included followed by variety of techniques.

The first modern Olympic games had only four swimming events, three of them freestyle. The second Olympics in Paris in 1900 included three unusual swimming events. One used an obstacle course and another was a test of underwater swimming endurance and the third was a 4000 metre event, the longest competitive swimming event ever. None of the three was ever used in the Olympics again.

Introduction to Swimming

Swimming is a form of exercise that burns a lot of calories, increases your cardiovascular fitness levels, improves your muscular endurance and strength, does not impact the joints due to the water supporting your weight, refreshes and cools you in hot weather, and which can be done safely even in old age. 

The basic principle of swimming is buoyancy. The human body has high water content and its density is close to the density of water. Due to its cavities (most prominently the lungs), the average density of the human body is lower than that of water, so it naturally floats.