Skybrook Storm Swim Team

Strokes:

Freestyle – Also known as the forward crawl. Swim on stomach. Reaching arms and small flutter kicks.

Backstroke – Swim on your back. Long strait arms and a small flutter kick. Belly up, head back.

Breaststroke – Swim on stomach with a narrow “frog kick”. Breathe every stroke. All about timing and power.

Butterfly – Swim on stomach. Both arms and legs move together. Imagine a butterfly's wings. They look identical just as your arms should as they are swimming the butterfly. Kick is like a mermaid or dolphin with feet, knees, and thighs staying together.

Terminology:

Distances – The Skybrook pool is 25 yards long.

Starting Blocks – Not to be confused with diving boards, these are stationary and do not spring. This is where the race begins.

Starts – When the starting horn sounds, swimmers dive or jump out as far as they can to start their race.

Backstroke Starts – You start swimming backstroke in the water holding onto the wall or the starting blocks. Toes must be underwater.

Backstroke flags – The triangle flags at each end of the pool. They are used primarily for backstroke, to let the swimmer know the wall is near.

Control Breathing – Your heart rate will go up if you are working hard and exercising, so it is important to control your breathing in order to control your heart rate. 

Event – Ex. Girls 7-8 25Y Freestyle. This is for meets and it describes the race.

Heat – There will be a lot of swimmers swimming each event. There are only 6-8 lanes in most competition pools. Each event is broken up by heats to accommodate all of the swimmers racing in that event. 

Flip Turn – Used to transfer your momentum 180 degrees. Swimming into the wall then stopping and pushing off the wall is a waste of time and energy. A flip turn allows you to take all the speed you have into the wall then change direction while at the same time avoiding all the water you were pulling behind you as you push off under water. This turn is used for freestyle and backstroke for a 50 yard/meter swim or greater. 

Relay – A race with four swimmers. For swimmers 12 & under, there are two relay events - one is the 100 Medley Relay and the other is the 100 Freestyle Relay. Each swimmer will swim a 25Y race. For the 13 & up swimmers, the relays are 200 Medley and 200 Freestyle. Each swimmer will swim a 50. One swimmer will swim at a time and when that swimmers touches the wall the next swimmer will dive in and start swimming their leg of the race.

IM – Individual Medley – The IM or Individual Medley is a race where one swimmer will swim EACH of the strokes in a single race.

IM Order – Fly, Back, Breast, Free. Ex. 100 IM is a 25 yard swim of Butterfly, 25 yard swim of Backstroke, 25 yard swim of Breaststroke, and a 25 yard swim of Freestyle, in that order.

Medley Relay Order– This is swam in a different order since you can’t dive in and swim backstroke. Back, Breast, Fly, Free.

Disqualified/DQ – If you are DQ'd from a race, you did something “illegal” according to the rules of the stroke set by USA Swimming and you will receive a “0”. Please don't get upset if your swimmer gets a DQ. The coaches will know what they did and will work with them to make sure they don't do it again.

Typical Rules Broken:

Freestyle –

Pushing yourself forward off the bottom of the pool.

Pulling yourself forward with the lane line. Other than those two things you are free to swim the style you choose.

Backstroke –

Rolling on to your stomach (other than if you are about to doing a flip turn).

Pulling on the lane line.

Pushing off the bottom of the pool.

Breaststroke –

Doing a butterfly, flutter, or scissor kick.

Not getting your head out of the water every stroke.

Keeping the 1/1/1 ratio - 1 pull with your arms, 1 breath (don’t actually have to breathe but your head must come up), 1 breaststroke kick with toes out and feet flex for the majority of the kick.

Arms going below belly button.

Not touching the wall with two hands for your finish.

Butterfly –

Non-simultaneous arms (arms not moving together or in sync).

Feet coming apart (flutter kick or breaststroke kick).

Arms not coming out and going over the water after the pull.

Not touching the wall with two hands for your finish.

All Strokes –

Moving on the block after the start says “Take your mark” and before the BEEP, this will cause a false start, the first false start of every heat is strike one for the entire heat, next swimmer to false start is DQ’ed.

Not finishing a race.

Stopping to fix goggles (excluding freestyle).

Pushing off the bottom of the pool.

Pulling on the lane line.

Relay – Not getting out of the water fast enough (before the swimmer after you gets to the other wall) or leaving too early.