The front crawl, forward crawl, or freestyle is a swimming stroke usually regarded as the fastest of the four front primary strokes. As such, the front crawl stroke is nearly universally used during a freestyle swimming competition, hence the synonymously used term "freestyle". It is one of two long axis strokes, the other one being the backstroke

Backstroke

The backstroke, also sometimes called the back crawl, is one of the four swimming styles regulated by FINA, and the only regulated style swum on the back. This has the advantage of easy breathing, but the disadvantage of swimmers not being able to see where they are going. It is also the only...

. Unlike the backstroke, the butterfly stroke

Butterfly stroke

The butterfly is a swimming stroke swum on the breast, with both arms moving simultaneously. The butterfly kick was developed separately, and is also known as the "dolphin kick"...

, and the breaststroke

Breaststroke

The breaststroke is a swimming style in which the swimmer is on his or her chest and the torso does not rotate. It is the most popular recreational style due to its stability and the ability to keep the head out of the water a large portion of the time. In most swimming classes, beginners learn...

, the front crawl is not regulated by the FINA

Fina

Fina may refer to:*Fina, a character in the Skies of Arcadia video game*FINA, the International Swimming Federation*FINA, the North American Forum on Integration...

. This style is sometimes referred to as the Australian crawl or the American crawl, although these can refer to more specific slight variations, classified as front crawl strokes.

Ergonomics

The face-down swimming position allows for a good range of motion of the arm in the water, as compared to the backstroke

Backstroke

The backstroke, also sometimes called the back crawl, is one of the four swimming styles regulated by FINA, and the only regulated style swum on the back. This has the advantage of easy breathing, but the disadvantage of swimmers not being able to see where they are going. It is also the only...

, where the hands cannot be moved easily along the back of the spine. The above-water recovery of the stroke reduces drag, compared to the underwater recovery of breaststroke

Breaststroke

The breaststroke is a swimming style in which the swimmer is on his or her chest and the torso does not rotate. It is the most popular recreational style due to its stability and the ability to keep the head out of the water a large portion of the time. In most swimming classes, beginners learn...

. The alternating arms also allows some rolling movement of the body for an easier recovery compared to, for example, butterfly

Butterfly stroke

The butterfly is a swimming stroke swum on the breast, with both arms moving simultaneously. The butterfly kick was developed separately, and is also known as the "dolphin kick"...

. Finally, the alternating arm stroke makes for a relatively constant speed throughout the cycle.

History

The front crawl has been in use since ancient times. In the Western world, the front crawl was first seen in a swimming race held in 1844 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, where it was swum by Native North Americans

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

, who easily defeated all the British breaststroke swimmers. However, the English gentlemen considered this style, with its considerable splashing, to be barbarically "un-European". The British continued to swim only the breaststroke in competition.

Sometime between 1870 and 1890, John Arthur Trudgen learned the front crawl from native South Americans during a trip to Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 (the exact date is disputed, but is most often given as 1873). However, Trudgen mistakenly used (in Great Britain) the more common sidestroke (scissor) kick instead of the flutter kick used by the Native Americans. This hybrid stroke was called the Trudgen

Trudgen

The trudgen is a swimming stroke sometimes known as the racing stroke, or the East Indian stroke. It is named after the English swimmer John Trudgen ....

stroke. Because of its speed, this stroke quickly became popular.

Trudgen's style was improved by the Australian champion swimmer, Richmond "Dick" Cavill (1884–1938), the son of the swimming instructor, "Professor" Richard "Frederick" Cavill. While Richmond and his brother "Tums" developed the stroke, they were later inspired by Alick Wickham, a young Solomon Islander

Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...

 who was living in Sydney. He swam a version of the crawl stroke that was popular in his home island at Roviana lagoon. They modified their swimming stroke using this as inspiration and this modified Trudgen stroke became known as the "Australian crawl".

The American swimmer Charles Daniels

Charles Daniels (swimmer)

Charles Meldrum "Charlie" Daniels is a former American swimmer and eight-time Olympic medalist. Daniels was an innovator of the front crawl swimming style, inventing the "American crawl".-Career:Daniels began his swimming career with the New York Athletic Club in 1903...

 made modifications to a six-beat kick, thereby creating the "American crawl". With minor modifications, this stroke is the front crawl that is used today.

While the front crawl has become the fastest stroke in all of swimming, the swimmer can choose to swim any stroke of their choice while competing in a freestyle event of any length.

Technique

The first position for front crawl or Freestyle is the streamline position, that is to stay on the stomach with both arms stretched out to the front and both legs extended to the back.

Arm movement

The arm movement alternates from side to side. In other words, while one arm is pulling/pushing, the other arm is recovering. The arm strokes also provide most of the forward movement. The move can be separated into three parts: the pull, the push, and the recovery.

From the initial position, the arm sinks slightly lower and the palm of the hand turns 45 degrees with the thumb side of the palm towards the bottom. This is called catching the water and prepares for the pull. The pull movement follows a semicircle, with the elbow higher than the hand, and the hand pointing towards the body center and downward. The semicircle ends in front of the chest at the beginning of the ribcage.

The push pushes the palm backward through the water underneath the body at the beginning and at the side of the body at the end of the push.

This pull and push is also known as the S-curve.

Sometime after the beginning of the pull, the other arm begins its recovery. The recovery moves the elbow in a semicircle in a vertical plane in the swimming direction. The lower arm and the hand are completely relaxed and hang down from the elbow close to the water surface and close to the swimmer's body. The beginning of the recovery looks similar to pulling the hand out of the back pocket of a pair of pants, with the small finger upwards. Further into the recovery phase, the hand movement has been compared to pulling up a center zip on a wetsuit. The recovering hand moves forward, with the fingers trailing downward, just above the surface of the water. In the middle of the recovery one shoulder is rotated forward into the air while the other is pointing backwards to avoid drag due to the large frontal area which at this specific time is not covered by the arm. To rotate the shoulder, some twist their torso while others also rotate everything down to their feet.

Beginners often make the mistake of not relaxing the arm during the recovery and of moving the hand too high and too far away from the body, in some cases even higher than the elbow. In these cases, drag and incidental muscle effort is increased at the expense of speed. Beginners often forget to use their shoulders to let the hand enter as far forward as possible. Some say the hand should enter the water thumb first, reducing drag through possible turbulence, others say the middle finger is first with the hand precisely bent down, giving thrust right from the start. At the beginning of the pull, the hand acts like a wing

Wing

A wing is an appendage with a surface that produces lift for flight or propulsion through the atmosphere, or through another gaseous or liquid fluid...

 and is moved slower than the swimmer while at the end it acts like an oar and is moved faster than the swimmer.

A recreational variation of front crawl involves only one arm moving at any one time, while the other arm rests and is stretched out at the front. This style is called a "catch up" stroke and requires more strength for swimming. This is because the hand is beginning the pull from a stationary position rather than a dynamic one. This style is slower than the regular front crawl and is rarely used competitively: however, it is often used for training purposes by swimmers, as it increases the body's awareness of being streamlined in the water. Total Immersion

Total Immersion

Total Immersion is a method of swimming instruction, developed by Terry Laughlin, an American swimming coach. Its primary focus is to teach swimmers to move in a more efficient, natural way in the water...

 is a similar technique.

Leg movement

The leg movement in freestyle is called the flutter kick

Flutter kick

The flutter kick is a kicking movement used in both swimming and calisthenics.-Swimming:When swimming either front crawl or backstroke, the legs are extended straight backwards in line with the body. They are moved up and down, one leg kicking downwards as the other leg moves up...

. The legs move alternately, with one leg kicking downward while the other leg moves upward. While the legs provide only a small part of the overall speed, they are important to stabilize the body position. This lack of balance is apparent when using a pull buoy

Pull buoy

A pull buoy or leg float is a figure-eight shaped piece of closed-cell foam used in swim workouts. Swimmers place the buoy between the legs in the crotch area to provide support to the body without kicking the legs; this allows the swimmer to focus on training only their arms.Pull Buoys are an...

 to neutralize the leg action.

The leg in the initial position bends very slightly at the knees, and then kicks the lower leg and the foot downwards similar to kicking a football. The legs may be bent inward (or occasionally outward) slightly. After the kick the straight leg moves back up. A frequent mistake of beginners is to bend the legs too much or to kick too much out of the water.

Ideally, there are 6 kicks per cycle, although it is also possible to use 8 kicks, 4 kicks or even 2 kicks. Franziska van Almsick

Franziska van Almsick

Franziska van Almsick is a German swimmer. She won her first Olympic medals in 1992 at the Barcelona Olympic Games aged fourteen....

, for example, swam very successfully with four kicks per cycle. When one arm is pushed down the opposite leg needs to do a downwards kick also, to fix the body orientation, because this happens shortly after the body rotation. Alternatively, front crawl can also be swum with a butterfly kick, although this reduces the stability of the swimming position. A breaststroke kick with front crawl arms (the Trudgen

Trudgen

The trudgen is a swimming stroke sometimes known as the racing stroke, or the East Indian stroke. It is named after the English swimmer John Trudgen ....

) is awkward, because the breathing pattern for front crawl needs a rotation, yet a breaststroke kick resists this rotation.

Breathing

Normally, the face is in the water during front crawl with eyes looking at the lower part of the wall in front of the pool, with the waterline between the brow line and the hairline. Breaths are taken through the mouth by turning the head to the side of a recovering arm at the beginning of the recovery, and breathing in the triangle between the upper arm, lower arm, and the waterline. The swimmer's forward movement will cause a bow wave with a trough in the water surface near the ears. After turning the head, a breath can be taken in this trough without the need to move the mouth above the average water surface. A thin film of water running down the head can be blown away just before the intake. The head is rotated back at the end of the recovery and points down and forward again when the recovered hand enters the water. The swimmer breathes out through mouth and nose until the next breath. Breathing out through the nose may help to prevent water from entering the nose. Swimmers with allergies exacerbated by time in the pool should not expect exhaling through the nose to completely prevent intranasal irritation.

Standard swimming calls for one breath every third arm recovery or every 1.5 cycles, alternating the sides for breathing. Some swimmers instead take a breath every cycle, i.e., every second arm recovery, breathing always to the same side. Most competition swimmers will breathe every other stroke, or once a cycle, to a preferred side. However some swimmers can breathe comfortably to both sides. Sprinters will often breathe a predetermined number of times in an entire race. Elite sprinters will breathe once or even no times during a fifty metre race. For a one hundred metre race sprinters will often breathe every four strokes, once every two cycles, or will start with every four strokes and finish with every two strokes. In water polo

Water polo

Water polo is a team water sport. The playing team consists of six field players and one goalkeeper. The winner of the game is the team that scores more goals. Game play involves swimming, treading water , players passing the ball while being defended by opponents, and scoring by throwing into a...

, the head is often kept out of the water completely for better visibility and easier breathing, at the price of a much steeper body position and higher drag.

Body movement

The body rotates about its long axis with every arm stroke so that the shoulder of the recovering arm is higher than the shoulder of the pushing/pulling arm. This makes the recovery much easier and reduces the need to turn the head to breathe. As one shoulder is out of the water, it reduces drag, as one shoulder falls it aids the arm catching the water, as one shoulder rises it aids the arm at end of the push to leave the water.

Side-to-side movement is kept to a minimum: one of the main functions of the leg kick is to maintain the line of the body.

Racing: start

The start is the regular start for swimming. After entering the water a brief underwater gliding phase follows, followed by an underwater flutter kick or butterfly kick. After a maximum of 15 metres underwater the swimmer has to surface and start swimming, in compliance with FINA regulations of competitive swimming events.

Racing: turn and finish

The front crawl swimmer uses a flip turn or tumble turn

Tumble turn

A tumble turn, or flip turn is a technique of turns in swimming, used to reverse the direction in which the person is swimming. It is usually done when the swimmer reaches the end of the swimming pool but still has one or more lengths to swim....

to reverse directions in minimal time. The swimmer swims close to the wall as quickly as possible. In the swimming position with one arm forward and one arm to the back, the swimmer does not recover one arm, but rather uses the pull/push of the other arm to initialize a somersault with the knees straight to the body. At the end of the somersault the feet are at the wall, and the swimmer is on his or her back with the hands over the head. The swimmer then pushes off the wall while turning sideways to lie on the breast. After a brief gliding phase, the swimmer starts with either a flutter kick or a butterfly kick before surfacing no more than 15 m from the wall.

A variant of the tumble turn is to make a somersault earlier with straight legs, throwing the legs toward the wall and gliding to the wall. This has a small risk of injury because the legs could hit another swimmer or the wall.

For the finish the swimmer has to touch the wall with any body part, usually the hand. Most swimmers sprint the finish as quickly as possible, which usually includes reducing their breathing rate.

External links

• Swim.ee: Detailed discussion of swimming techniques and speeds
• Crawl, Freestyle swimming: Front crawl technique page
• Additional information About Freestyle and Front Crawl