Why are most of us good at certain strokes and not others? Is it genetics, body type, coaching, preference?
And why are some of us good at long axis, but not short axis? And vice versa?
Or why are we good at one short axis stroke, but not the other?
Johhny W swam American Crawl not Freestyle.I always thought Johnny Weissmuller won Olympic Gold in the 100 meter freestyle (twice), 400 meter freestyle and 4x200 meter freestyle relay (again twice). Okay, I agree that while swimming these Freestyle races, Weissmuller chose the American Crawl (not Australian Crawl) as his style. However he was still swimming freestyle.
And in today’s world at least in short course yards, amongst the elite swimmers, freestyle is more like 60% streamlined dolphin kicking and 40% American crawl.
But back to the original question “Why are most of us good at certain strokes and not others? Is it genetics, body type, coaching, preference?” I think it has a lot to do with genetics. My mother is a distance freestyler (excuse me crawler) and a flyer (butterflyer if we must be completely accurate), I am a distance freestyler and a flyer, and both of my children are distance freestylers and flyers. While my son is a wanna-be sprinter and my daughter disavows the ability to butterfly. None of us can do breaststroke, in fact my son’s coach has banned him from doing breaststroke in his presence. Nature or nurture? I vote for nature (breaststroke just isn’t natural).
Johhny W swam American Crawl not Freestyle.I always thought Johnny Weissmuller won Olympic Gold in the 100 meter freestyle (twice), 400 meter freestyle and 4x200 meter freestyle relay (again twice). Okay, I agree that while swimming these Freestyle races, Weissmuller chose the American Crawl (not Australian Crawl) as his style. However he was still swimming freestyle.
And in today’s world at least in short course yards, amongst the elite swimmers, freestyle is more like 60% streamlined dolphin kicking and 40% American crawl.
But back to the original question “Why are most of us good at certain strokes and not others? Is it genetics, body type, coaching, preference?” I think it has a lot to do with genetics. My mother is a distance freestyler (excuse me crawler) and a flyer (butterflyer if we must be completely accurate), I am a distance freestyler and a flyer, and both of my children are distance freestylers and flyers. While my son is a wanna-be sprinter and my daughter disavows the ability to butterfly. None of us can do breaststroke, in fact my son’s coach has banned him from doing breaststroke in his presence. Nature or nurture? I vote for nature (breaststroke just isn’t natural).
