Butterfly Swimming Technique

The Butterfly style or stroke originated in 1950s, and is a very attractive stroke, considering it from the audience perspective. The stroke was developed by swimmers who were trying to make breaststroke faster. The noticeable difference in this swimming style and the breaststroke is that the arms are recovered over the water at once and also the double legged dolphin kick. It is also called as the dolphin stroke, since it is swum with a dolphin like undulating movement on the upper side of the water.

The two arms pull water simultaneously under the swimmer and also recover simultaneously over water, with the two arms coming out together. When doing the two arm pull, swimmers also simultaneously do double dolphin kicks. One kick comes when the swimmer hits the water with the arms and one kick when the hands exit the water. The two feet along with kicking together, also need to be close to each other. The body is always in a perfect streamlined position, with the chin extending forward along the surface, this is when swimmers breathe.

A few swimmers prefer breathing to the side instead of raising the entire head above the water. The head and shoulders rise above the water as the hands sweep below the chest. The butterfly stroke races begin with a forward facing dive. Swimmers have to touch the wall with two hands at once at the end of each lap and will have to do open turns instead of flip turns in multi lap races.