Swimming is one of the most healthy sports around. The chance on injuries is very low and you train almost all your muscles. You do not have a chance on back problems or knee injuries of any kind. It is also a fact that swimming increases the strength of your lungs and is a very good treatment for asthma. Many people want to learn how to swim but they often don’t know where to start and how to become a better swimmer.

The last 10 or 20 years swimming has become very popular as a competitive sport. Especially in the USA the level and competition os swimmers tends to be very high. No surprise that during the US time trials many world records are broken. The best competitive countries in the world are USA, Russia, France, Great Britain, Australia, Germany, Italy, Hungaria and the Netherlands. With the increasing popularity of the swimming sport many young children want to be as good of a swimmer as Michael Phelps and want to learn how to swim.

Like every sport or practice, probably 50% of your swimming capacities are based on talent. You can train 100 hours a week but if you don’t have the talent than you will not become a good swimmer. The other way around is also true, if you got talent and you are swimming once a week than you will not get to the national top. Competitive swimming is not always the goal for people who just want to know how to swim.

The best way in learning how to swim is starting at a very young age. The human body is build in the way that it learns the most when we are young. If you want to learn swimming when you are older (above 20) than this is also possible but it will cost you more time to invest.

The 4 main strokes in swimming are Breaststroke, Butterfly, Backstroke and the Front stroke (freestyle). When you don’t know how to swim than the first stroke that will be teached to you is the breaststroke. It is very easy to lean because you don’t need any balance yet to keep your head above water. The basic breaststroke consists of a stroke with both your hands at the same time followed by a stroke with your legs. You will first learn this stroke with your head above water but when you get the hang of it you can put your head under water when you stretch your arms after the stroke.

You will not learn any stroke within a couple of days, you need to practice a lot to improve your swimming level. The more you practice the easier it will go eventually. Probably the hardest part of swimming is to put your head under water without panicking and remaining your balance. When you can control your movement under water this will help you to collect a feeling with the water.