Different Strokes

First of all, words of wisdom from Matt. You are perfectly right, doing the stroke we like is a better guarantee for durability. Originally posted by Jeff Commings I wish you could have seen me laughing on the floor, tears stremaing down my face, while I resisted the urge to pee my pants, all because you think breaststroke is "less tiresome." And "easier to breathe?" Hello???? Backstroke!!!!!!! Boy, that was the funniest thing I read all day. I think hofffam has a point. I swim recreational lane swim, in several pools. I notice that there are roughly about 5% of good swimmers. 15% of knowledgable swimmers and 80% of swimmers doing laps without caring about technique. Among these 80%, the majority swim a relax breaststroke. When I see a few swimming FS, their form is rather bad. Rarely I see someone swimming Backstroke, when this happens, the form is terrible (almost sitting in the water). So if breaststroke is hard, how come most of the recreational swimmers choose this stroke? In my opinion, breastroke is popular among the recreational swimmers because its movement is the closest to real life. People do a lot of movement with arms in front and not too far extended overhead. Even if a sloppy breaststroke is slow, people still adopt it because their muscles are familiar with the movement. For example, when opening a window or taking something from a shelf, I guess most of people won't do a backstroke/freestyle like movement. If you throw a non-swimmer in a pool, I bet you the first reflex he/she will have is to try to move in a breaststroke-like position.

First of all, words of wisdom from Matt. You are perfectly right, doing the stroke we like is a better guarantee for durability. Originally posted by Jeff Commings I wish you could have seen me laughing on the floor, tears stremaing down my face, while I resisted the urge to pee my pants, all because you think breaststroke is "less tiresome." And "easier to breathe?" Hello???? Backstroke!!!!!!! Boy, that was the funniest thing I read all day. I think hofffam has a point. I swim recreational lane swim, in several pools. I notice that there are roughly about 5% of good swimmers. 15% of knowledgable swimmers and 80% of swimmers doing laps without caring about technique. Among these 80%, the majority swim a relax breaststroke. When I see a few swimming FS, their form is rather bad. Rarely I see someone swimming Backstroke, when this happens, the form is terrible (almost sitting in the water). So if breaststroke is hard, how come most of the recreational swimmers choose this stroke? In my opinion, breastroke is popular among the recreational swimmers because its movement is the closest to real life. People do a lot of movement with arms in front and not too far extended overhead. Even if a sloppy breaststroke is slow, people still adopt it because their muscles are familiar with the movement. For example, when opening a window or taking something from a shelf, I guess most of people won't do a backstroke/freestyle like movement. If you throw a non-swimmer in a pool, I bet you the first reflex he/she will have is to try to move in a breaststroke-like position.