Swimming has been part of human culture since ancient times. Archaeological and other evidence shows swimming to have been practiced as early as 2500 BCE in Egypt and thereafter in Assyrian, Greek, and Roman civilizations.
Where was Swimming Invented?
Rock paintings of people swimming were found in the Cave of Swimmers near Wadi Sura in southwestern Egypt, they are around 10 000 years old. An Egyptian tomb from 2000 BC shows a variant of front crawl.
From then on, swimming was popularized and continued to develop across many cultures and countries.
Early History of Swimming
In Greece and Rome, swimming was a part of martial training and was, and also part of elementary education for males.
Early civilizations including the Egyptians, Persians, and Greeks extolled the virtues of cleanliness and Plato declared that “anyone who could not swim lacked a proper education”.
The Romans were heavily influenced by Greek culture and bathing played a major part in Roman social life, the most famous Roman of them all, Julius Caesar, was an accomplished swimmer.
The Romans built swimming pools, distinct from their baths. In the 1st century BCE, the Roman Gaius Maecenas is said to have built the first heated swimming pool.
In the Orient, swimming dates back at least to the 1st century BCE, and there is some evidence of swimming races in Japan. Competitive swimming is at least as old as 36 B.C. when the Japanese held the first known swimming races. the 17th century, an imperial edict made the teaching of swimming compulsory in schools. Organized swimming events were held in the 19th century before Japan was opened to the Western world.
The very first people to arrive in China from Africa about 50,000 BC probably already knew how to swim.
People in China were certainly swimming by the time of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, about 750 BC because the Book of Odes has a proverb telling people to “Row across if it is deep and swim across when it is shallow.”
By 500 AD, swimmers in China could do front crawl and back crawl, as you can see in this picture.
Among the preliterate maritime peoples of the Pacific, swimming was evidently learned by children about the time they walked, or even before.
Swimming in Middle Ages and Modern History
The lack of swimming in Europe during the Middle Ages is explained by some authorities as having been caused by a fear that swimming spread infection and caused epidemics.
The earliest recorded evidence in the UK suggests that the Romans first introduced swimming to Britain in 78 A.D and swimming was generally a sport of the lower classes.
The University of Cambridge has evidence of swimming as a sport being banned due to a drowning accident, that dates back to 1567.
After the agricultural revolution, the population of major towns and cities increased significantly and diseases caused by lack of hygiene also increased.
This ultimately led to changes in public health and the building of public baths. A swimming pool was built close to Cambridge University in 1705 and by 1855 Cambridge University formed one of the earliest UK swimming clubs. [http://www.cuswpc.org]
First Swimming Clubs
The earliest confirmed (and still existing) swimming club “Upsala Simsällskap, the Uppsala Swimming Society”… “was founded in Sweden in 1796 by the mathematician Jons Svanberg” where, in a mock graduation ceremony, students who completed its swimming training were “awarded degrees of master magister and bachelor kandidat”; an award that exists for swimmers to this day.
(http://www.museumstuff.com/learn/topics/University_of_Uppsala)
The first civic corporation to open an indoor municipal pool was Liverpool. The St George’s Baths was opened in 1828, with water provided from River Mersey, (International Journal of the History of Sport, 2007).
It was not until the Baths and Washhouses Act, of 1846, came into effect that the development of the late 19th-century modern industrial society would eventually turn swimming into a multi-participant competitive event.
In Victorian times, increased leisure time and socialization led to the formation of swimming clubs and by 1880 there were over 300 swimming clubs in England. As clubs became prolific, competitions naturally began between individuals, clubs, and later nations.
Long-distance Swimming History
There has been a massive contribution to swimming history by swimmers of long-distance open water events, in Greek myth, Hero and Lysander, and in 1810 Lord Byron, who swam the Hellespont, a mile stretch of water between Europe and Asia, which is now an annual multi-participant event.
(http://www.swimhellespont.com/the-hellespont/)
Though the exploits of modern swimmers like Lynne Cox, Susie Maroney, and Martin Strel are remarkable, it could be considered that, for many, the ultimate challenge and test of endurance is the swimming of the Channel.
All channel swims are now celebrated and commemorated by the Channel Swimmers Association and these remarkable achievements and records are listed at http://www.channelswimmingassociation.com with the most notable being Michael Read 33 crossings, Alison Streeter’s 39 crossings. (Youngest Man – Thomas Gregory Years 11 years 330 days, Youngest Lady – Samantha Druce 12 years 118 days. due to rule changes, the youth records will stand for all time).
Modern Swimming Coaching
The very best coaches examine each element of starts, turns, and strokes in order to train their swimmers to make faster times.
Competitive swimming is an ongoing process of far-seeing coaches attempting to find new and better training ways rather than using established methods, starting from the first technical coaching book “The Manual of Swimming” written by Charles Steedman, an Englishman, in 1845.
The establishment often seeks to retain the style, consistency, and visual look of the four conventional strokes and any changes that may compromise safety or stroke often result in changes to the rules.
The history of modern competitive swimming is part of a continuing story of this development of swimmers seeking an advantage.
How were Swimming strokes Invented?
In 1844 American native swimmers to the shock of local spectators, easily outperformed a group of English gentlemen who chose to swim with their heads above water using breaststroke, by using a crude splashy windmill action.
Due to social niceties (and fear of water-born disease), this style was not accepted and so did not take off immediately.
A form of front crawl only became socially acceptable in 1873 when re-introduced as the Trudge(o)n by Sir Arthur Trudgeon.
He had learned it from South American Indians as a young man of 11 and returned to England and used it in winning a championship race in 1875. The Trudgen is an overarm stroke that is characterized by a breast or scissor kick rather than a flutter kick.
Who invented freestyle swimming?
In 1898, Alick Wickham, a Solomon Islander introduced the recognizable beginnings of the correct crawl stroke to the western world.
George Farmer, an Australian coach, is attributed with the phrase “look at that kid crawling” and from that phrase, a new word describing a stroke that would eventually dominate all subsequent speed racing was born.
A British-born Australian swimming teacher, Richard Frederic Cavill, used this front crawl technique with a flutter kick in 1902 at an International Championships in England.
Cavill set a new world record, and easily outpaced all the Trudgen exponents, swimming 58 seconds over the distance of 100 yards and the Trudgen swimming style was lost forever as a competitive stroke.
In 1906 H. Jamison “Jam” Handy, a keen, physically limited (according to his own words), but technically gifted, before his time, American Olympic athlete, is credited with the invention of modern freestyle breathing.
He experimented by putting his face in the water in secret training sessions and became the first swimmer to use a bilateral stroke action to dominate a race.
According to the International Swimming Hall of Fame: “Handy is responsible for modern freestyle breathing, and the body position made possible by modern breathing.
He invented the legless crawl for distance swimmers, the 2 or 4 beat “pause that refreshes” for middle distance, and lines on the bottom of the pool for sprinters to keep their heads down and see where they are going.
He was the first swimmer to use the alternating arm stroke in backstroke and the first swimmer to narrow the kick and change the timing in breaststroke.
This stroke of alternating legs and arms performed on the front is technically now known as the front crawl and is currently the dominant stroke in freestyle events. “
Backstroke Development
Austin Rawlinson was awarded an MBE in 1961 for services to British swimming.
In 1915 Rawlinson pioneered the use of the alternating arm backstroke in Britain based on Hebner’s 1912 Olympic gold medal performance.
After finishing an active swimming career Rawlinson continued serving swimming in an administrative capacity and was commemorated in his lifetime by the building of the Austin Rawlinson Sports Centre in Speke, Liverpool.
It has been suggested, that it may be possible for some backstrokers to swim faster times by using considerably more flutter kicks, but as yet this style has never been proven or fully developed.
David “Blastoff” Berkoff: the backstroke start and turn.
In 1988 at the Olympics David “Blastoff” Berkoff swam the first 33 meters of the 100m backstroke entirely underwater.
Because drag is a major factor in swimming fast, it is technically faster to swim underwater using a butterfly kick.
In the final Berkoff was out “blast-offed” by Daichi Suzuki who won the gold in 55.05 as he had also perfected the method in secret.
FINA, concerned with safety limited the underwater start to ten meters, which was later expanded to the current underwater distance start limit of 15m in 1991.
Who invented the butterfly stroke in swimming?
In 1928, David Armbruster the coach at the University of Iowa in the USA introduced new scientific rigor to the study of swimming through the use of underwater photography.
When analyzing breaststroke he realized that bringing the arms out of the water would increase velocity by eliminating the dead spot.
Jack Sieg, a student of Armbruster was coached in this method and swam close to 1 minute for the 100 yards swim and by 1938 nearly all competitive breaststrokers were using this style.
In 1952 the butterfly stroke finally became a style in its own right.
In 1956 a Japanese swimmer Masaru Furukawa found another way of swimming faster breaststroke.
By swimming the stroke largely underwater he won the Olympic gold medal. Unfortunately, this led to swimmers copying Furukawa and some competitors passed out during races due to oxygen starvation.
A new rule was introduced by FINA, limiting the distance that can be swum underwater after the start and every turn, by demanding that the head break the surface after each complete stroke cycle.
One element of common cheating at breaststroke, with changes to FINA rules, has theoretically been removed, by allowing a single underwater downward kick (fly kick) at the start and following each turn.
Misty Hyman’s fish-like swimming
Bob Gillett, the coach to Misty Hyman used food dye to examine forces in butterfly. Discovering that energy was lost using the vertical dolphin action he coached Hyman to swim on her side using fishlike movements.
Gillett said it became clear to him “that there was a great amount of energy swirling beneath the surface”, the energy that was not only being lost but also causing retardation through turbulence.
At the Canadian Open Championships in Saint Foy, Quebec, Hyman took only 16 strokes rather than the usual 40 reduced the world butterfly record by .39 seconds, and perfected the art of swimming like a fish.
The technical committee of FINA, the sport’s governing body, restricted all underwater starts for Fly, Back, and Freestyle to a maximum of 15m.
Hyman, disappointed said, “We’ll set ourselves short if we limit it on butterfly”. She also said. “Don’t break the rules, but push it to the limit.”
It was noticeable that, at the recent World Championships in 2005, 3 out of 4 of the USA Gold Medal-winning men’s freestyle team, used this butterfly action kick, on the side, in the turn.
Competitive swimming progress
The history of swimming would be incomplete without reference to an assistant coach to Armbruster who would eventually become universally accepted as the world’s greatest-ever swimming coach.
James “Doc” Counsilman author of “The Science of Swimming” and producer of the “Competitive Swimming Manual”, used a 2D model to examine lift and the Bernoulli effect.
Although this work was further re-evaluated by Rushall et al using a 3D model, it prompted the continuing debate about whether lift or drag dominated swimming propulsive forces.
Counsilman was the coach to many of the all-time greats of swimming and his swimmers won more than 48 Olympic medals.
Counsilman developed interval training, the pace clock, and constantly searched for new and better ways.
“He believed that we keep progressing by evaluating change objectively.
He warned: “Don’t paint yourself into a corner; people write something and they are scared to walk away from it.” Doc had an anti-doctrinaire nature which precluded him from swallowing systems whole. He believed that putting methods into neat pigeonholes, to synthesize them, led to “stagnation and not progress.” [http://www.usms.org]
Alongside Counsilman, two further coaches, both Australian, were important innovators in swim research, training, and racing.
Forbes Carlisle, introduced even-pace (negative split) swimming and “speed through endurance” and Frank Cotton, was the “Australian Father of Sport Science”.
Both of these coaches brought revolutionary thinking and research into swimming. In 1932, Cotton proposed using the heart rates of swimmers to measure the energy costs of training effort and insisted that his swimmers keep log books, he also instituted the revolutionary idea of shaving the body to swim faster times.
Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/sports/swimming-sport
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_swimming
http://www.usms.org
http://www.channelswimmingassociation.com
http://www.swimhellespont.com/the-hellespont/
http://www.museumstuff.com/learn/topics/University_of_Uppsala
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