I could have sworn freestyle swimming styles looked different in Olympics in the ‘90s. It looks like now freestyle is mostly upper body with fewer kicks. Why is this? Why the change?
In: Physics
Swimming is all about efficiency. In short races like the 50-200m, you can sacrifice efficiency in exchange for extracting every bit of power.
For longer races, the rapid flutter kicking and high stroke pace is not sustainable. So the strokes become longer and kicking transitions to slower, but more controlled kicks. A very frequent style is essentially kicking with the alternate leg to your arm stroke. This helps maintain body position and provide some power during your stroke to help lengthen put and maximize your distance per stroke.
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