Why is buoyancy important to swimming?

Answer 1

being buoyant allows you to stay on the surface of the water easily, but other than buoyancy, you need to have good technique, a muscular build and a confident mind to be a successful swimmer.

Buoyancy in this case refers to the difference in density of the swimmer vs that of the water. The more buoyant you are, the larger portion of your body will be above water when you attempt to float (with no other motion).

Obviously, the more buoyant you are, the simpler it is to keep your head above water and be able to breathe. That is, a more buoyant person will have to spend less energy to keep themselves from drowning.

Buoyancy can come from several areas:

(1) ironically, fat is much less dense than muscle, so a person with a higher body fat percentage (BMI) is much more buoyant than one with a low BMI. Which means that obese people float much better than fit people. However, as obese people are much less able to keep up a sustained level of exercise required to actively swim, a fit person is a much better swimmer.

(2) flotation aids - such as a life vest, inflatable "floaties" and similar objects, or even clothing properly used in a lifesaving manner (e.g. a pair of pants taken off, reversed with legs tied behind the neck then filled with air) can provide a large extra buoyancy measure, allowing the person to remain afloat with virtually no effort. However, actively swimming while wearing such aids is very difficult.

(3) External objects that the person can grasp. Anything from a piece of wood, to a life preserver can increase the person's buoyancy. Once again, this allows the person to stay afloat (so long as they have the strength to grasp the object), but seriously inhibits swimming.

In general, the more buoyant a person is (whether due to fat or a worn or grasped floatation aid), the harder it is to swim properly. "Good" swimmers are much like sharks - they tend to be naturally non-buoyant, but use very efficient movements to maintain forward motion, and thus, remain able to stay afloat.

A good example of the difference between the two: a typical competitive swimmer (not an olympic-class one, just your average high school swimmer) should have no problem treating water for several hours unaided. A typical obese person will generally become tired and begin to founder after several dozen minutes (no more than a half-hour, at best), even though the obese person must put in much less effort to stay afloat. In fact, most competitive swimmers have negative buoyancy, which means that they will sink (even when holding their breath) if they don't actively treat water, while greatly obese people need to do no more than slowly wave their arms just below the water's surface to keep in an upright position.

Answer 2

Your body will actually naturally float in the water provided some givens.

1. You need to be alive and breathing. The air in your lungs will keep you afloat naturally

2. You have to be in a position that gives your body the most surface area on the water, such as lying on your back. If you try to stand in the water you will still float, but will sink much lower; sometimes lower than your mouth/nose level (causing you to drown).

Swimming is a method of pushing through the water in order to propel yourself in a certain direction. If you want to stay afloat while in a "standing" position, you have to "scull" the water by moving your hands back and forth.

Answer 3

The human body in 99.9% of cases floats therefore yes you can retain buoyancy when swimming

Answer 4

Because if you didn't float, you'd drown!