Swimming has always been a part of my life, and I’ve been through it all. I went from being a sprinter to a breaststroker to a butter flyer and then eventually what I am today, a distance swimmer. There are mainly two types of swimming, sprinting and distance. They both require a lot of the same commitments but both also offer diverse things. Distance and sprinting are both alike but people don’t know how different they are.
Even though they are different types of racing both need a large amount of time commitment and dedication. No one type of swimming is easier than the other; they require the same amount of training at the same amount of difficulty. For both distance and sprinting you need to know what you need to do to become faster. The biggest reason why distance and sprinting are different is because sprint races are shorter and distance races are longer. Distance races only involve freestyle while sprint races can involve all four strokes. Sprint races can take twenty-two seconds when a distance race could take almost twenty minutes.
Knowing that distance swimming requires a tremendous amount of endurance; the practices are longer and the workouts are longer. They have to keep themselves motivated throughout a workout, keeping their arms and their legs moving as they glide through the water. Dan Benardot worked with the 1996 Olympic team and he knows a lot about endurance athletes. “It appears that the endurance swimmer can work harder” (Benardot). The physical make up of a distance swimmer is the complete opposite of a sprint swimmer. Distance swimmers are lean and don’t have a lot of muscle mass, they are considered toned athletes. The breathing method is also different. Distance swimmers have prolonged breathing and take long deep breaths. Distance swimmers could also do sprinting events because they need to sprint at the end of doing their long events.
Sprint swimmers require muscular recognition, which means that when they train they train their bodies to recognize when they need to go fast in a race. The workouts are shorter but they are quicker than distance swimming. They create wake as they propel themselves through the water like a rocket, allowing them to go as fast as they can. The body make up of a sprinter is a lot more muscular than a distance swimmer they are more built. Also, sprinters take shorter breaths because in their races they don’t have time to waste, even to breathe.
Distance swimming and sprint swimming are both very different. They are similar in ways because they involve hard work. The majority of the time, though, they are extremely different. Swimming is difficult sport and every event that there is requires dedication, no matter what it takes.
Works Cited:
Benardot, Dan. “Distance Swimming.” Health Line. 7 Dec. 2008 <http://www.healthline.com/hlbook/nut-distance-swimming>.
