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?
there's a rather interesting project that USA Swimming undertook around the 2000 Olympics. it's rather dense, lots of numbers and stats, but gives some insight into the connection between body type (ie genetics) and specialization in given strokes (treating sprint free and distance free as separate "strokes"). rather than getting yelled at for linking to the study, go to USA Swimming's website and type in "Anthropometrics" in the search feature. the first link that comes up is what i'm refering to...
granted this is for elite swimmers, but it's still rather interesting, if you don't mind all the numbers. (just a hint, if you scroll almost the whole way down, there's a quick summary for women and men in each stroke.)
and as an aside, i know i fit into the backstroke category pretty well, especially the lack of vertical jump :laugh2:
there's a rather interesting project that USA Swimming undertook around the 2000 Olympics. it's rather dense, lots of numbers and stats, but gives some insight into the connection between body type (ie genetics) and specialization in given strokes (treating sprint free and distance free as separate "strokes"). rather than getting yelled at for linking to the study, go to USA Swimming's website and type in "Anthropometrics" in the search feature. the first link that comes up is what i'm refering to...
granted this is for elite swimmers, but it's still rather interesting, if you don't mind all the numbers. (just a hint, if you scroll almost the whole way down, there's a quick summary for women and men in each stroke.)
and as an aside, i know i fit into the backstroke category pretty well, especially the lack of vertical jump :laugh2:
