How good do you have to be at swimming to play waterpolo?
I’m with Bart Loews. You have to be a strong swimmer but water polo has its own specific skills so being a great distance swimmer will not be as useful as being a fairly good lifeguard.I would say a good synchronized swimmer would very quickly become a great water polo player. The two sports require great egg beater kick.Among competitive swimmers, I think breaststrokers would be most easily make the transition. Whip-kick is similar to eggbeater so they would quickly master the treading and starts from zero.Sprint freestylers or backstrokers would learn quickly enough, I guess. The key to waterpolo is starting from motionless in the water to high speed. Freestyle is fastest but it has little accelerating power - it depends on the dive. The fastest way to go from 0 to full speed is with a few eggbeater or whip kicks and a transition to freestyle. These kicks have great power but the wide legs give too much drag for high speed swimming.To start waterpolo, you need to be able to swim head up front crawl and tread water. And throw. Personally, I can tread water high enough to get my shoulder clear for good throwing but my throwing skill or strength is terrible. It is the throwing that holds me back.Passing a standard lifeguarding class would be a good way to meet minimum standards for a water polo team.
How would swimmers do in water polo if they played it?
Swimmers will have an advantage in water polo if they start learning the sport at the same time as the other water polo players. Otherwise, the knowledge, experience, and skills developed by a water polo player will usually offset any swimming speed the swimmer might have. If a swimmer were to wander in off the street and try to play water polo against experienced players, they would probably be at a loss at both offense and defense. Their only advantage *might* be in their speed during a counterattack. The best thing a fast swimmer can do is to train their response time to take off at any hint of a shot or turnover, and beat defending players down the pool. Even then, they still need ball-handling and shooting skills to get the ball past the goalie.Typical water polo swimming during a game consists of sprinting 20-25 meters, playing offense for 30 seconds or less, sprinting 20-25 meters, playing defense for 30 seconds or less, repeat for 15 minutes straight, then do all that each quarter of the game. If the swimmer is a long-distance swimmer, they have no real advantage against water polo players that are basically sprinters with amazing stamina. If the swimmer is a sprinter, they may have an advantage because of their speed, but this is offset by 1) established reaction times by experienced water polo players that will give them a few seconds lead on both offensive and defensive counterattacks, and 2) the speed difference over 25 meters is generally not significant as it would be over long distances. All water polo players should participate in their school's swimming programs in the off-season in order to give them a significant advantage (established over time) during their water polo games.
I play water polo and on the swim team and I wear speedos. Do you girls think they are hot or ugly?
Personally, I think speedos look alright on a guy, but for me, looks really don't matter that much. And if you're on the water polo and swim teams, you're going to look good in that speedo anyway.
How should I get in shape for water polo out of the pool
I played water polo in high school but I stopped for a year and now I want to get back into it. I'm out of shape by water polo standards and I want to get back in shape and improve my performance but I can't really go through a training regimen in the pool just yet. Are there any drills or exercises that I can do on land that will help me out. My biggest weakness is that I'm not a very fast swimmer(by competitive swimming/water polo) standards and I'd like to improve my speed and endurance but anything that will improve my game would be appreciated.
Do girls like water polo players?
Im sorry to say water polo is an under rated sport...ive played for 6 years and was all american at my school the best any girl at my school has done and i got no special attention from my peers for it. most girls that like water polo guys are water polo girls, and swimmers. don't worry about it that special girl will catch your eye and keep doing well in water polo not for the attention from girls but, for you ;)) keep ya head up
If high school water polo teams are competing and a player needs to urinate, do they sometimes pee in the pool?
I didn’t play in high school but I played in college and after college as well. I never once pee’d in the pool and I don’t ever remember having to leave the pool to pee. Water polo is a pretty high energy game and substitutions happen fairly frequently. I may have gone to the bathroom 1 time during a game in my life. The 4 periods are never longer than 8 minutes and assuming you didn’t have to pee when you got in the water the chances you had to pee during the period are pretty low and at the very most you would be “holding it” for 5 minutes or so.Generally swimmers and water polo players pee before they leave the locker room. Even when I was playing other sports like basketball I tended to go to the bathroom before leaving the locker room. I’m sure there are water polo players who peed in the pool but I would be kind of shocked if it was a common occurrence. You’re effectively swimming in your own pee, you have to assume if you’re doing it others are doing it and water gets in your mouth… Basketball games are longer than water polo games and somehow I managed to never pee on myself on the court. I know people pee in pools, particularly little kids but how common is this really? I think it probably happens more when I have 30 drunk adults in my pool than it would happen with water polo players.
Is water polo the toughest sport in the world?
I played water polo in college, and it is pretty flipping brutal. I can't imagine a tougher sport, unless you're talking about extreme distance stuff like the Death Valley Ultra. Unlike other sports, in order to even begin to play water polo, you have be a seasoned athlete, and a mean human being. There's no such thing as pitty pat waterpolo, like there is for tennis. You don't "toss the ball around" like you do in baseball. The basic resting position in water polo is treading water hands-free. your hands are almost always above the water in practicality, and your legs are holding you up. Forget about your legs, and you sink.To throw or catch a ball, you basically jump out of the water, using nothing but the power of a kick. Try jumping out of the water, and see how well it works out for you, sometime. Then try catching something in midair while you're at it.To get from one place to another in water polo, you swim heads up. This is about 4 times as hard as swimming heads down, for some reason. That's what the spectators see. Underneath the waterline, water polo players are busy ripping each others' swimsuits to shreds, rendering each other unable to bear children, and removing piercings "the hard way". If there's not blood in the water, it's not a good match. It's pretty much anarchy. As long as your hands are visible and you have an innocent expression on your face, you can do whatever the hell you want with your feet.Of course, once you get out of the water, it's all smiles and rainbows again. Unless you're Russia and Hungary. Blood in the Water match