Abstract

Water and movement in water offer even further benefits positively affecting the widely understood human health. Only the major ones are presented here. At the same time, we do not even mention the utilitarian aspects of the swimming skill constituting a separate, extremely large area of knowledge. For these reasons, numerous research programmes are conducted worldwide, of results which document the importance of activity in water, irrespective if it is undertaken for recreation, health, rehabilitation or sport reasons. Researchers working in this field exchange their views at numerous seminars, conferences and congresses. Also, plentiful popular science and science works and studies on this subject are published all over the world. All the same, ordering and describing knowledge on swimming still requires extensive work. Thus, it seems that meetings of researchers studying various areas of swimming, held cyclically in Wroclaw, may to some extent supplement the knowledge on the subject. A monograph Science in Swimming II continues presentation of interesting results of research projects conducted in various research centres all over the world. Since our last meeting, new research concepts have appeared; more modern methods and measuring instruments have been applied and new conclusions have been drawn based upon it. These conclusions will undoubtedly enrich knowledge and in many cases will become useful for all those dealing with implementing them in practice. (Wörtliche Textpassage aus der Einleitung)