Swimming Butterfly: The Complete Guide

What Is Butterfly?

Butterfly is one of the most beautiful strokes to watch. When done well, it looks powerful and effortless. Although it’s certainly powerful, it’s not effortless!

Butterfly is distinct from the other strokes in that both arms recover over the water at the same time, creating the perception that you’re flying over the water. Butterfly also uses a double-leg kick rather than single-leg kick. A key difference between the butterfly kick and the breaststroke kick is that your feet turn in during butterfly and out in breaststroke. Your butterfly kick is also vertical and breaststroke kick horizontal.

Butterfly and breaststroke have many commonalities, which is unsurprising considering that butterfly evolved from breaststroke. Breaststrokers started to recover their arms over the water during the initial parts of their races because that created more speed but would then switch to an underwater recovery to conserve energy. Eventually, some swimmers maintained the overwater recovery throughout the entire race, and a butterfly kick replaced the breaststroke kick. It became clear that swimmers were doing two different strokes, and butterfly was declared a separate stroke in 1953.

Butterfly races are conducted over 50, 100, and 200 yards or meters. As with the other strokes, the 50 is typically considered an all-out sprint requiring pure speed, the 200 is considered a middle-distance event requiring a blend of speed and endurance, and the 100 is a mixture of the two.

Butterfly is the first stroke (butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle) of individual medley races, which cover 100, 200, and 400 yards or meters.

You can also swim butterfly in a medley relay, during which four swimmers each swim one-quarter of the race distance in a separate stroke (relay order is backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, freestyle). Medley relays are done over 200 and 400 yards or meters.

What Are the Elements of Butterfly?

There are four key skills you need to swim effective butterfly.

• Pull. During one stroke cycle, your arms will pull simultaneously once and recover simultaneously once. An effective pull produces more speed. Your goal is to push backward against the water as much as possible for as long as possible, as fast as possible. Position your hands and forearms so that they’re facing backward and then hold that position throughout the pull.
• Kick. Your legs will kick simultaneously twice during each stroke cycle. An effective kick produces more speed. To create propulsion with your legs, get the flat surfaces of your feet pushing backward against the water so that you can move yourself forward.
• Timing. Effective timing of your arms and legs helps you go fast.
• Body Position. Throughout your stroke cycle, maintain a level body position in the water, moving from this position only for the purpose of breathing and recovering your arms. This horizontal body position limits the amount of resistance you create as you move through the water. As you pull, your upper body will naturally rise, which causes your hips to sink, making it much more difficult to recover your arms over the water. By kicking hard as your pull finishes, you can lift your hips to ease your recovery. During your recovery, your body will be at an incline, which creates more resistance. By kicking hard as your hands enter the water, you can get your hips back in line.

What Are Butterfly’s Impacts on Your Body?

As with the three other competitive strokes, butterfly requires using most of the muscles of your body. The muscles of your upper body power your pull and arm recovery, the muscles of your torso control the undulation of your body, and the muscles of your legs power your kick.

The most propulsive part of your pull is done by the strongest muscles of your upper body: your pectoral and latissimus muscles. These muscles are responsible for creating most of your speed in butterfly.

At the conclusion of your pull, your triceps muscles contribute additional propulsion, as well as the hand speed necessary for an effective arm recovery. Your deltoid muscles in your shoulders bring your arms forward during your recovery.

Because there is undulation throughout your stroke, your abdominals and the muscles of your back are working constantly to maintain a proper body position.

During your down-kick, your hip flexors and quadriceps work hard to create propulsion. During your up-kick, your hamstrings and glutes work hard to recover your legs quickly in anticipation of the next kick.

Because of the high forces, speeds, and ranges of motion involved in your arm actions, your shoulders are particularly vulnerable to injury from swimming butterfly. Although back problems are not as prevalent, you could experience them because of the range of motion your spine moves through. And you could also experience ankle pain, particularly if you do a lot of dolphin kicking; but ankle pain happens much less often than shoulder and back pain. Proper technique and paying attention to your body is critical for avoiding injury.

Because butterfly requires all the muscles of your body, swimming it burns a lot of calories, somewhere around 800 per hour depending on your body weight. But swimming butterfly for an extended amount of time isn’t likely to be something you’re going to want to do, if you’re even able to.

Common Reasons for Disqualifications in Butterfly

When racing butterfly, be mindful of mistakes that can lead to disqualification. All these mistakes are much more likely to happen when you get tired. Whenever you’re working hard, stay focused on swimming with great skills to reduce the likelihood that you make one of these mistakes. If you’re consistent with your skills in workouts, you’re more likely to be consistent with your skills in competition, even if you get tired. 

Stroke

• You must recover both of your arms over the water. Butterfly evolved from breaststroke, in which you recover your arms under the water, and where your arms recover is one of the rules that distinguish the two strokes.
• Both of your arms need to move simultaneously. If your arms pull separately, or more likely, recover separately, that’s grounds for disqualification. 

Kick

• Your legs, just like your arms, need to move simultaneously, whether you’re doing a butterfly kick or a breaststroke kick (sometimes known as butterfrog, which is legal in USMS competitions). The presence of a flutter kick, even a small one, can result in a disqualification. 

Turns/Finishes

• All turns and finishes must be done with both hands touching the wall at the same time. Touching one at a time, even in quick succession, can lead to a disqualification. 

How to Swim Butterfly Faster and How to Build Endurance

Getting faster at butterfly is relatively straightforward: You need to swim a relatively small amount of high-quality and high-speed butterfly repetitions while taking adequate rest.

Swimming with proper technique is critical for swimming butterfly fast, so be sure that you’re performing the necessary skills. Accelerate your hands throughout your pull until they exit and then move your arms over the water quickly. You should be trying to swim as well as possible while going as fast as possible.

Avoid becoming too fatigued. Swimming while you’re tired will make it harder to swim well and to swim fast. If you’re struggling to perform a certain skill while swimming fast, consider doing drills to work on them while swimming fast.

Building endurance for butterfly is a bit trickier relative to the other strokes.Although swimming freestyle smoothly for extended periods of time is easy enough, doing so while swimming butterfly is harder. As a result, you’ll have to use some alternative strategies.

The simplest strategy is to focus on shorter repetitions, and more of them, all with shorter breaks between. Rather than swimming 5 x 200s, do four sets of 10 x 25s, with short breaks, to build the endurance and skills you’re looking for. This ensures you’re practicing effective skills while developing the endurance to perform those skills over and over.

Another strategy is to do a lot of butterfly kicking. This ensures your legs are fit enough to sustain your butterfly skills. And by working on your kick, you don’t run the risk of ruining your butterfly technique.

To develop endurance in your upper body, doing longer repetitions of freestyle, either as swimming or pulling, can be a big help. Although freestyle isn’t butterfly, the movements are similar enough to help you improve your butterfly. 

Why Is Butterfly So Difficult?

As you’ve probably noticed, swimming butterfly is hard. Why?

The biggest reason is that you must recover both of your arms over the surface of the water at the same time. In breaststroke, you recover both at the same time but under the surface. In freestyle and backstroke, the recoveries happen one at a time, and you have body rotation to help. To recover your arms smoothly in butterfly, you must generate a lot of hand speed during your pull, which takes a lot of work. That’s the only way you’ll be able to swing them smoothly over the surface.

To make matters worse, you’re not just lifting your arms out of the water. You must lift your whole upper body to get your arms over the water. Your shoulders simply don’t have enough range of motion for your arms to clear the water without lifting your chest. That takes work. And when you lift your upper body in the water, your hips are going to sink. To prevent your hips from sinking, you must kick your legs hard. That means even more work just to complete the stroke, let alone to swim it fast.

Although it’s difficult to pull hard to create the hand speed necessary to recover your arms, lift your body to recover your arms, kick to keep your hips up, and then actually recover your arms, you must do all of that without a break. If you try to glide in butterfly, you’re going to lose all your speed. When you lose all your speed, you’ll spend even more energy trying to create the arm speed necessary to recover your arms over the water. Not only is butterfly difficult because you must recover both of your arms over the water at the same time, but you must do it without any real opportunity to rest during the stroke. 

Individual Differences and Modifications in Butterfly

Although the rules of butterfly determine what skills swimmers need to do, how to do those skills is flexible. If you watch any butterfly race, even at the Olympic level, you’ll notice subtle differences between the swimmers. Some swimmers use a short, tight kick and others use a bigger, deeper kick. Because the size of the kick affects the amount undulation in the stroke, differences in the amount of undulation are common.

Swimmers rarely glide in butterfly, but they prefer different stroke rates ranging from very fast to as patient as possible. There are also large differences in the pulling patterns swimmers use. Some pull wider and shallower, whereas others pull deeper and narrower. These differences are often the result of individual variation in strength and range of motion in the upper body.

Swimmers also choose to use different breathing patterns during their races. Some breathe every stroke, some every other stroke, and some every third stroke. Another common pattern is to breathe for two strokes followed by a nonbreathing stroke. As a rule, the shorter the distance, the less swimmers breathe. Some swimmers struggle to breathe effectively with their head forward, so they choose to breathe by turning their head to the side.

Although a butterfly kick is traditionally used in butterfly, USMS rules permit swimmers to use a breaststroke kick during butterfly, or what’s sometimes called butterfrog. This can be a good alternative for swimmers who find that kicking style more comfortable and faster. 

Comparing My Times to Swimmers My Age and Sex

What’s good? Whenever someone embarks on an athletic journey, they want to know where they stand. Because swimming is so quantifiable, it lends itself to those comparisons.

To help you get a better understanding of how your times compare to others’, there are several different ways to understand the different levels of performance. By seeing a range of results, you can determine where you are.

World Aquatics Masters Top 10

It starts at the top with the fastest performances of all time from across the world. These are the best Masters swims in history. This gives you a great sense of what’s possible. Please note that these are all meters times because only the U.S. races in yards.

Long course meters

Short course meters

USMS Records

Here you can find the fastest U.S. Masters Swimming members ever. Again, these are aspirational times to get an understanding of what’s possible. Just search based upon your sex and your age.

USMS

USMS Top 10

Here you can search for the top 10 times for your age group and sex by year. These swimmers are the fastest in the U.S.

Top 10

USMS Top Times

You can see the top times, up to 500, in your age group and sex during each season, to see where you stand. This helps you see the true range of ability levels for those who compete in USMS meets.

Top 500