Comment by refulgentis

Comment by refulgentis 2 days ago

Dumb q, never learned to swim and don't understand the sport contextually.

Given:

"Some especially strong underwater swimmers stayed submerged almost the entire length of the pool, since there was no rule against it. That all changed in 1998, when FINA, the world governing body of competitive swimming, ruled that swimmers performing the backstroke had to surface after 15 meters."

This is used to explain a conclusion used throughout the rest of the article, namely, the dolphin/fish strokes aren't useful in competitive swimming because people using them have to surface.

But I don't understand: the rule says swimmers performing the backstroke have to surface, and when I look up backstroke, it is someone laying on their back? Which doesn't sound like either of these

snowwrestler 2 days ago

> the rule says swimmers performing the backstroke have to surface, and when I look up backstroke, it is someone laying on their back? Which doesn't sound like either of these

The updated rules essentially say a swimmer in a "backstroke race" must perform the backstroke for 35 meters. Prior to this rule, top swimmers would stay underwater for most of a length and only do a few actual back strokes before their flip turn.

In other words, before this rule they mostly were not performing the backstroke, despite the name of the race.

Reply View 1 reply

refulgentis 2 days ago

Ahhhh, after reading this, I think the part I was missing is swimming events aren't general w/r/t method
i.e. I'm familiar with track and field - it's "transport yourself X distance, fastest time wins"
With swimming, its "transport yourself X distance using method Y"
And you could have used the methods described in a race where method Y == backstroke at some point, as the requirements for backstroke were such that you just did a couple things quick, then could go underwater and do your thing till you finish...but that workaround is no longer available given the 15m rule.
(ty all)

Reply View | 0 replies

senkora 2 days ago

These short videos should clear it up:

Backstroke start technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwq-IsGNa28

Backstroke flipturn technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-WNtRGwSjQ

Underwater dolphin kicks can be done on your front, back, or (I guess) side, so it also works for backstroke. And the way that starts and turns work in backstroke still puts you underwater at the start of each lap.

Reply View 0 replies

onlypassingthru 2 days ago

There was a brief period where the fastest backstrokers in the world would swim almost the entire length of the pool underwater using the upside down dolphin kick because it is faster than swimming on the surface for the reasons described in the article.

Reply View 0 replies