Swimming in the ocean is among the most delightful and fulfilling experiences ever. Besides the fun, ocean water has myriad benefits to a person’s wellbeing and health. The ocean water isn’t usually as calm and steady as that of your pool; it can be highly wavy sometimes.
Swimming in ocean waves without the right skills and practice of the most suitable strokes can pose a severe danger to you and lower your swimming experience. Whether you’re swimming for enjoyment, competition, or fitness, it crucial that you learn various swimming strokes to swim comfortably in different settings.
There are many swimming strokes you can employ in various swimming settings. If you’re an ocean lover, you must be really eager to learn the best swim stroke for thrilling and safe ocean swimming.
Well, you’re just in the right place. This article provides comprehensive detail about the best swim stroke for ocean swimming, plus information about the most popular, fast, and effective swimming stroke that should be on your radar.
The Best Method For Swimming Into Waves
Swimming in wavy waters requires that you always be in tune with waves movement while maintaining calmness, adjusting your breathing and momentum every second you’re in the water. You also need to practice and master the best stroke.
Usually, the best swim stroke is one which you’re very good at and may vary depending on why you’re swimming. However, the most recommended swim stokes for choppy waters are breaststrokes and Freestyle (crawl).
Crawl is suitable for individuals swimming for competition since it’s the swiftest stroke. It’s also preferred because it’s easier to lift your head in Freestyle. Doing this allow will you to understand how you navigate and take proper course corrections.
To effectively do this stroke, you should lie on your front, and your body should be parallel to the water. Then you propel in a forward direction by alternating the movement of your hands while the legs do flutter kicks.
You can always ensure your strokes and breathing are at par by timing moving your head to the side while keeping one ear outside water when turning your head. To remain floating, you should avoid turning your head too far and lifting your face.
Breaststrokes are another common and easy swim stroke to learn. Its recommended for swimming into waves because you don’t put your head out of water. As much as it might seem like an easy technique, breaststrokes require you’ve more stamina and strength to move faster and generate extra power to kick through the arm recovery and pulling motion.
If you’re just swimming for fun and don’t have any hurry, you can use more than one style. For example, you can use sidestroke, incorporate and master the dolphin dive, or using both crawl and breaststrokes when necessary.
Swimming Stroke That Most Swimmers Commonly Use
Generally, there are four major swim strokes people use, and they include breaststrokes, backstrokes, crawl, and butterfly strokes. These swimming styles come with their pros and cons, and they’re suitable for varying swimming settings.
Among these strokes, some are loved more by swimmers while others are rarely practiced. Which is the most common swim stroke swimmers use, and why is a common question today. What’s loved most is probably effective and manageable, and for swimming, many people prefer breaststrokes.
Research indicates that the majority of swimmers tend to use this stroke only. Most people go for this stroke because they can swim with their heads on top of the water, allowing easy breathing and navigation, which is crucial, particularly for starters and casual divers.
In most cases, competition and expert swimmers can occasionally immerse their heads underwater in the gliding phase to minimize drag and enhance their position.
However, this stroke is the slowest among the three strokes because the thighs propel forward against the direction of swimming during leg recovery, hence causing a drag.
To execute this stroke effectively, float on the water your face and front-facing downwards. Place your arms in front of your body with the hands together. Stretch out your legs and toes. To propel forward, simultaneously move your hands in a circular motion as the legs do the whip kicks.
Your head should be in the water during execution, and your thumb should be pointing downwards for easy and effective hand movement. You’ll lift your head to be able to breathe when bringing your arms together again.
The Fastest And Most Efficient Swimming Stroke
Front crawl is considered the swiftest and most efficient stroke among the four swimming strokes. It’s also known as Freestyle, and it’s popularly utilized during freestyle swimming events. It mimics the windmill movement, where you move your arms in an alternating manner as your legs do flutter kicks.
This movement makes water move backward as you propel forward. Your toes need to be pointed, and your legs stretched, floppy ankles, and remember to alternate the kicks upwards and downwards.
As much as most people believe that Freestyle is the fastest stroke, recent research indicates other underwater faster strokes than the front crawl. These stokes are fish kick and dolphin kick.
Dolphin kicks involve a person swimming facing down, while in fish kicks, the swimmer swims on his/her side. Among these two styles, the fish kick is the swiftest. Most swimmers support that dolphin kicks help them enhance their swimming speed due to minimal resistance.
Besides speed, dolphin kicks can be a handy race or drills strategy in the four major swim strokes. Although these styles are not officially categorized as major swim strokes, they can be a great way to boost your swimming speed and efficiency in both calm and choppy water.
Swimming can be a fascinating, safe, and fulfilling activity when done correctly. For an enhanced experience, it’s best you master the various swimming styles and strokes, have proper swimming equipment, practice more often, and know when to employ the specific swim strokes.
Crawl and breaststrokes are the most recommended strokes for wavy waters. But only if you can perform them. If you don’t know them, it’s best that you practice or use the one you’re best at in the meantime.
