Hi guys I never learned to swim as a child, and I’ve signed up for adult swim lessons soon. Something I think will help me prepare for the lessons is I don’t know the mechanics/physics behind the motion. So I’m asking
1.) how do people float in water and why is it crucial to swimming?
2.) how do people actually move from point a to b in water while swimming?
EDIT: thanks so much to all who have responded with answers, tips, advice, and encouragement! Trying to read through all your helpful answers ☺️
In: 715
1) people naturally float because humans are mostly buoyant. You won’t just sink like a rock being in the pool unless you have rocks in your pockets or are dummy muscular. In short, you move water out of the way when you get in, and that water wants to go back to where it was.
2) you move in the water by pushing the water away from you. You’ll see that when you move your body in the water, you’ll move too. Swimming is accomplished by pushing water away from yourself, cause an equal and opposite reaction in the opposite direction.
This is all in grossly oversimplified terms, but it’s enough to start. Swimming isn’t scary and is a great way to recreate and work out.
First off, humans are naturally buoyant. Hold your breath and relax and you’ll float on the water like a cork. Always remember you can float on your back if you’re tired, it’s a lifesaver.
Second, much of swimming is pushing the water one way so you move the other way. There’s lots of variations on this such as the front crawl and breast stroke.
Former varsity swimmer and lifeguard here. Like others said, your body is naturally buoyant. Others have said you are pushing water away from you – it’s more like the inverse – pulling yourself with your hands and propelling yourself with your feet through the water.
Imagine if your hands were the paddles on a row boat and your legs are a kind of motor on the back of the boat. You propel yourself through the water.
There are different swimming strokes – the easiest one in regards to basic swimming is breast stroke in my opinion. Your hands are always cupped because an open hand doesn’t generate much drag. Your arms and legs move in a circular motion which both propels you forward and keeps you afloat. This is also the best technique for swimming underwater.
It’s hard to explain the nuances through text, far easier to demonstrate in the water.
Like anything when you’re first starting out, it’s nerve wracking, but once you get an idea of how the human body interacts with water, it will become more intuitive and you will be able to become better on your own time.
Good luck and have fun!
Floating is a question of density. The human body is about 70% water. Of the remaining 30% some portion of that is denser than water but there’s enough that’s less dense than water which means that you naturally float if you lie still. This is why if you ever get into difficulty just stop and relax because in a panicked state you can perform motions that cause you to dip below the water line. That fine balance is how you can dive underwater if you want to. It takes continuous effort to remain underwater as your body is naturally buoyant.
You can swim with as simply as extending your arms and moving them in circles. Due to the density difference between the water and the air you will essentially have more friction with the water than friction with the air and this will transform into acceleration through the water.
Kicking vertically with your legs will also cause you to move forwards because as you exert vertical force on the water some of it moves behind you and every force has an equal and opposite reaction and so you get some forward momentum from that as well.
You can move through the water either with your arms or legs but it’s usually more efficient to combine the two.
What I would recommend is first get comfortable floating so you know what state to return to by default. Then just make specific movements with your arms and legs and feel the effect it has. If something does something you don’t like you just stop and you will return to floating.
EDIT: If you want to dive underwater, though I wouldn’t recommend trying this until you’re comfortable on the surface, you just rise up and then use the potential energy by pushing your face down into the water. Then your lift your legs up and your stomach essentially acts as a fulcrum and then the weight of your legs pushes you further down. At this point , if you do nothing, you will float back up to the surface, so you need to to use the same surface swimming techniques to counteract that buoyancy.
Underwater you won’t have the benefit of the low air resistance for half of the stroke. So you need a slightly different technique where by you’re creating mores resistance for half of the stroke. For example turning your hands parallel to the direction of travel to move them forwards so they generate less resistance during that motion and then turn them perpendicular for the return motion so you create more resistance as you pull back.
It sounds complicated but it’s actually incredibly instinctual.
Floating is because your bodyfat is less dense than water, the air in the lung cavity too
Moving is the same way that something like a paddle-steamer or a row boat moves, the paddle goes in the water flat and pushes water backwards, moving the floating thing forward. When you swim you just alternate how you hold your hands so you don’t need to take them out of the water, flat with fingers tightly together when you want to push, and open/thin-side when you want to reset your hand position ready to push again
The hard part of swimming is that you need to learn how to coordinate your hand/arm/leg movements, so that you move continuously without getting tired. With practice most people get it pretty good within a few hours of learning each swimming stroke
I can’t speak to how they will give lessons to you as an adult, but if it helps, when my kids took lessons they started off holding on to the edge of the pool and practiced floating while holding on, then kicking while holding onto the edge of the pool.
After this, they held a floating kick board with their arms out in front and practiced propelling themselves by kicking. After that they worked up to adding in the arm motions.
As others have said, kicking can propel you alone, but using your arms adds a lot of extra force and speed.
I’m sure you’ll pick it up quickly. Good for you for learning!
Picture a bird flying. Same thing. They flatten the wing when they push, but they collapse it on the way back up before the next push. Swimming is like flying in 0 gravity with a thick atmosphere.
You can control your bouyance with how much breathe you take into your lungs.
I took adult swim lessons and they were great. The instructor definitely understood that swimming can be a bit intimidating as an adult and she was super kind and patient. By the end of my lesson series I could comfortably swim lanes in 3 different types of strokes (although not very fast:) and dive! Even more importantly I felt like I could swim lanes for practice without being intimidated. I hope you have the same good experience!
I got goggles and partway through I got a nose clip and that helped me a lot!
OP, just to reassure you a bit, the first thing they do in the swimming lessons won’t be swimming laps it’ll probably just be treading water or practicing floating while holding the side, stuff like that. They’ll be used to teaching people who can’t swim.
Most people think you have to float on top of the water. This is false. Just below the surface, most people are neutral buoyant. It is positively buoyant if you keep your lungs full of air. Your head is heavy, most dense part of your body. Trying to keep your head above the surface is counterproductive, so the easiest way to float is on your back, with most of your head below the surface. With just your mouth and nose above water. Have your back arched so that your chest is at the surface (it’s full of air so it’s buoyant). Then, to move, just kick your legs and use your arms like oars.
Then, when you are comfortable in the water, you can turn on your stomach. Keep your face and head in the water, kick your feet, and bring your arms over to stroke. Turn your head every other stroke to exhale and breathe in. Then you’re swimming.
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