Men’s 100 Meter Freestyle

Swimming is governed by FINA (Federation Internationale de Natation)

Olympic swimming uses four basic swimming styles or strokes. Freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly (or all four within one race - that is called the IM or individual medley).

There are 16 swimming pool events for men and women swimmers in the modern Olympic Games.

Background Information

History

Alfréd Hajós, Hungary - the First Olympic Champion in swimming

In 1896 the Olympics had four swimming events for men only:

100 meter 500 meter 1200 meter freestyle The sailors 100 meter

freestyle. Alfréd Hajós of Hungary

won the 100 meter and 1200 meter events.

Olympic size pool is 50m100 meters (328.1ft) = 2 laps in an Olympic size pool or 4 in a regular size pool

Lap - from one side to the other.

Facts

Olympic Size Pool Layout

In the Olympics, the freestyle events can be swam with whichever stroke the participant prefers, but all use the crawl stroke, which is what we regard as the freestyle stroke, because it is the fastest stroke.

Freestyle

Freestyle Form

KickingArm stroke

◦ Push – Drag ◦‘S’ shape

Breathing

World Record is 47.05 seconds set by Eamon Sullivan of Australia  in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games on August 13, 2008 during the first leg of the 4x100 relay race. He only received Silver during the 100m Freestyle sprint.

Alain Bernard of France received Gold with a time of 47.21

Facts

Sprint training adds the anaerobic fitness base to the aerobic base you have developed with your endurance training. It works on the two anaerobic energy systems: the creatine phosphate energy system and the lactate energy system.

Training involves short, fast repeats with good rest intervals to ensure you can overload both these energy systems. The additional benefit of sprint training is muscle adaptation to the speed type exercise, as well as the aerobic benefits trained earlier. Working the fast twitch muscle fibers will increase their number and size in a given muscle as well as the speed of excitation.

Sprint Training

To optimize strength and power, competitive swimmers need to supplement their pool training with land based training in the gym. For best effect, the program of strength training exercises should replicate the actions in the water as closely as possible.

Strength Training

Cable rotational front, back & rear arm pulls

Medicine ball single arm overhead throw

Swiss ball body pulls

Upper Body Exercises

Barbell Squat Jumps

Lower Body ExercisesHip Extension Hip Flexion

Set a Goal. The number of hours spent in the pool is an

ingredient of swimming success, but also a shorter, race-pace-specific program of exercises performed away from the pool will improve swimming performance.

Have Fun!

Summary

Athletic Scholarships. 2010 http://www.athleticscholarships.net/history-of-swimming.htm

Mat Luebbers. “Illustrated History of Olympic Swimming”. About.com Guide, 2010. http://swimming.about.com/od/swimmingolympics/ss/swim_hist_pics.htm

Mat Luebbers. “Olympic Swimming Rules - Freestyle and Backstroke in Olympic.” About.com Guide, 2010. Swimminghttp://swimming.about.com/od/swimmingolympics/a/olympicswimbasi.htm

Telegraph. “Michael Phelps is great, but not the greatest Olympian.” 14 Aug 2008. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/olympics/2560409/Michael-Phelps-is-great-but-not-the-greatest-Olympian-Olympics.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men's_100_metres_world_record_progression ESPN. “2008 Summer Olympics Results – Swimming”. 2010.

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/summer08/results?eventId=320 Vision Forum – Afghanistan. 26 Aug 2010.

http://visionforumafghanistan.blogspot.com/2010/08/olympic-size-swimming-pool.html

Sports Coach. “Strength Training.” 1 January 1997. 8 Sept 2010. http://www.brianmac.co.uk/swimming/swimplan.htm

BioForce. http://www.fitnessquest.com/images/BioForceExercise.pdf

Work Cited