I'm not discussing Instant Messaging today. Instead, I'm talking about the Individual Medley, a race in competitive swimming. The heroine of my YA swimming-romance-murder-mystery Streamline--Audrey Rose--specializes in the I.M.
The individual medley features all four strokes in the following order: butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle.
This race is fun to watch because there are often lead changes. Rarely is one swimmer awesome at all four strokes (even Michael Phelps has an "off" stroke of breaststroke but "off" for him would be very "on" for most of us!) The I.M. does tend to favor breaststrokers though because that stroke comes at a pivotal part of the race.
Training I.M. is fun because there's so much variety. Getting tired of butterfly? (My answer is always a resounding yes! My friend Joe calls my butterfly the "ugly".) Flip over to backstroke. Backstroke shredding your legs? Time for breaststroke. And then bring it all home on the freestyle.
I.M. transitions require great technique and finesse. Here's a short video showing two swimmers demonstrate the turns from fly to back, back to breast, and breast to free.
Now you'll have some more knowledge for the swimming events in the Olympics this August.
The individual medley features all four strokes in the following order: butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle.
This race is fun to watch because there are often lead changes. Rarely is one swimmer awesome at all four strokes (even Michael Phelps has an "off" stroke of breaststroke but "off" for him would be very "on" for most of us!) The I.M. does tend to favor breaststrokers though because that stroke comes at a pivotal part of the race.
Training I.M. is fun because there's so much variety. Getting tired of butterfly? (My answer is always a resounding yes! My friend Joe calls my butterfly the "ugly".) Flip over to backstroke. Backstroke shredding your legs? Time for breaststroke. And then bring it all home on the freestyle.
I.M. transitions require great technique and finesse. Here's a short video showing two swimmers demonstrate the turns from fly to back, back to breast, and breast to free.
Now you'll have some more knowledge for the swimming events in the Olympics this August.
Comments
Really interesting. I'm going to check out more of your posts!
Heather
Lx
I'm hoping to get to some of the Olympic events, I love synchronised swimming, but will take almost anything and definitely yes to watch this if I got the chance!
Jack, it's always a good day when you learn something new.
Heather, exactly! There's a lot of peace when it's just you and the H2O.
Hey Roland, glad to share some meaningless tidbits from my fave sport!
Mimi, I love synchronized swimming too. What gifted, graceful athletes.