Should a swimmer's arms serve as paddles or propellers? That question, abstruse as it might seem, underlies a long-running controversy in swimming about the best, most efficient technique for the freestyle and the backstroke. It also prompted a new study from a group of scientists at Johns Hopkins University that, in seemingly answering the question, is likely to provoke even more debate.
The concern about how best to position and move the arm during swimming first gained prominence back in the 1960s, when James E. Counsilman, the famed Indiana University men's swimming coach known as Doc, decided to apply scientific principles of propulsion and fluid dynamics to swim techniques.
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