Diving, in its purest form is an expression of art. Competitive diving as an organized sport has only a brief history of about 100 years.
In 1912, women started to enter Olympic diving competitions. The only equipment that you need is a diving board, pool, and bathing suit. To be a good diver, you must exercise and eat right. Flexibility, general exercises, and body conditioning are important ingredients of a total program.
Some exercises you could do are sit-ups, push-ups, hurdle-ups, and weight lifting. According to official rules, you may take more, but not less, than three steps. Make sure you relax and walk normally to the end of the board. Let your arms fall as though you were walking normal. Then allow both arms to swing back, bend knees, and then jump in the air and let your body float in the air with your muscles tight.
When you dive, you probably wonder what will happen when you enter the water. As you enter the water you have two choices on where to go. These are called saves. The first is to take it to the bottom.
The second is to go with the flow, which means to continue your spin as you go to the bott om. In diving there are four positions, the layout position, and free position. In the layout there are two ways. One is used for the front or inward dive. The other is used for the back, or reverse-spinning dive. The pike is the most attractive position, it is used for the spinning dive.
Keep your head in enough to see over your toes. The tuck is when you bend your body both at the hips and the knees. The free position is a combination of two or more of the other diving positions. Certain dives have requirements for the use of the free position. There are also six basic dives which are, front dives, back dive, inward dive, and the half twist dive.
The front dive is done from the front hurdle . It can be done in any of three positions. The back dive is usually done in either a layout or a pike. The reverse dive is the most spectacular of all dives. It is fun to do and thrilling to watch. In the inward dive, you must stand on the end of the board, jump backward and spin toward the water.
The half twist is a dive most divers use. In conclusion, diving, to the untrained eyes of the spectator, may look easy, but is a truly difficult sport to master. It requires much training on the part of the athlete.
