Why learn different swimming strokes?

You may be wondering if learning several different swimming strokes besides your preferred swim stroke is valuable or a waste of time.

For example, you may be a beginner triathlete training for a triathlon event next summer that has to learn how to swim quickly.

Or you may be a long-time swimmer that has a good breast stroke or freestyle stroke and you are considering whether you should learn the butterfly stroke or the backstroke.

The Benefits Of Swimming Several Strokes

The answer is that besides the obvious bigger time investment, there really are only benefits to know several different swimming strokes.

• When you swim several strokes you use more muscles and your body gets a better workout.
• The risk of a swimming injury is decreased because you don't always stress the body with the same movements and the musculature is more balanced.
• Your swimming fun is increased because your workouts are more varied when you can choose among several swim strokes.

• The skills that you learn in one stroke can often be transferred to another swim stroke. For example, the balance skills that you learn for the front crawl are also needed in backstroke. Or the body undulation that you need for the butterfly stroke is also an asset while swimming breaststroke.
• Knowing several types of swimming strokes can also be a big advantage in triathlons. Obviously, if you know freestyle you will swim faster and tire less than if you only swim breaststroke during the event. Switching to breaststroke in turn can be interesting when you need orient yourself, as you have better visibility than when you are swimming front crawl. And if you know backstroke, you can roll on your back when you are tired and take a few strokes in that position to recover.

In conclusion

So my recommendation is that if you aren't in a big hurry and need to learn how to swim one particular swim stroke as soon as possible, I really pays off to learn how to swim the four strokes.