So why is Synchronised Swimming more challenging than rugby?

SYNCHRONISED SWIMMING

It looks effortless, they’re smiling, it’s a girl’s sport and their hair even stays in place……. so it must be easy.

Find out what makes a Synchronised Swimmer a highly tuned athlete.

There is very little known about the Olympic Sport that is Synchronised Swimming. There is the misconception that the sport is for “sissies” and is terribly boring. In fact, most of you would probably change the channel when it comes on the TV. This blog aims to quash these mistaken beliefs! There is more to Synchronised Swimming than women in skimpy outfits, super strong hair paste and water-proof make-up.

It is a sport which requires the endurance of distance swimming and track, the strength and power of water polo, the choreography and artistic grace of dance and the figures, leaps and spins of figure-skating performed in an unstable medium: WATER.

Make-up brings out the swimmer's features and the smile seen plastered on a swimmer's face are meant to deceive the audience into believing that the performance is easy. Far from it. There is actually a lot of arduous training, strength and stamina involved that makes a game of Rugby look like a walk in the park.

Soooo….if you would like to know a little bit more about this sport then read on…and we promise we won’t tell any of your friends.

Top 5 interesting facts about Synchronised Swimming.

1. Synchronised performances last four minutes, three of which the swimmers are often underwater. Teams will regularly remain underwater for a full minute during a routine. We remind you that while submersed, they do all sorts of crazy acrobatics we couldn’t do with a trampoline and a bottle of whisky. They train for this by swimming laps underwater without coming up. Most swimmers can hold their breath for around three minutes and swim 75 meters without grabbing some oxygen. The effort can be compared to running without taking a breath for up to 30 seconds. Try that this weekend.
    
2. A synchronised swimming team practices more than any other sport. Between eight and ten hours a day, six days a week.
    
3. The secret to the perfect hair that doesn’t seem to move is horse cartilage. Yep, swimmers buy a package of unflavoured gelatin from the supermarket, dissolve it in water and then brush it on their hair before competition. The key ingredient in the paste, though, is soft equine cartilage (a main component of gelatin) that is apparently quite healthy for the hair. The paste keeps the hair stiff and in place throughout competition. A shower in really hot water is the only way to break loose.
    
4. Try listening to music underwater and you’ll understand the difficulty of underwater sound! The impedance of water is 3,600 times that of air. What little sound is transmitted beneath the water relies more on bone conduction through the middle and inner ear than the traditional route through the eardrum. There’s a 62-decibel offset between sound in the air and that in water. Normal talking is approximately 60 db, meaning communicating at that same relative intensity requires 122 db in the pool. Doesn’t sound that bad till you realize 120 db is somewhere between the noise level created by a jet airliner and that of the threshold for human pain!! But swimmers can’t perform their intricate dance moves in unison if the music is only audible above the water. Synchronised swimmers rely on some pretty impressive underwater speaker technology similar to what is used in military and anti-terrorist organizations.! Whoa.
    
5. Finally…what is the most essential piece of equipment in synchronised swimming? The NOSE CLIP. The nose clip allows swimmers to perform leg movements and elements upside-down without getting water in their nose. A swimmer often carries an extra nose clip in her suit, just in case the one she is wearing gets knocked off during a routine. Thus the nose clip is a very important necessity. Who would have thought?!

To see the Great Britain Synchronised swimming team in action, click here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpsetKOePPk

For competition information on the London 2012 Olympics, check out this link:
http://www.london2012.com/synchronised-swimming/about/

Ever thought about giving Synchronised swimming a go?

Try these 2 basic moves:

1. The Egg-beater Kick (a highly efficient way of treading water)
   
   - Keep your back straight, knees bent so that the thighs are parallel to the surface of the water
     and the lower legs are perpendicular to the surface.
   
   - The left foot makes a clockwise motion while the right leg makes a counterclockwise motion.
   
   - The legs should never meet because when one foot is on the inside of the motion, the other
     should be on the outside. Hey presto! That’s how you stay above the surface of the water in
     synchronised swimming!
    

The Boost (Simply launching as high out of the water headfirst as you can without touching the bottom of the pool!)

- Go right under water.

- Squish your body like a spring ready to…spring!

- Push your hands and do one giant breaststroke kick to propel yourself headfirst out of the water.