What Creative Swimmers Want You Knew About This Completely Grueling Olympic Sport

Whereas lots of people assume creative swimming is delightfully antiquated—a bunch of “bathing beauties” in floral swim caps and cherry-lipped smiles—that concept is a drained previous stereotype that Daniella Ramirez, a Crew USA creative swimmer set to compete on the 2024 Olympic Video games, is sick of listening to. She’s amassed a TikTok following together with her post-performance, ASMR-esque “get unready with me” movies, and he or she’s hoping her content material in the end brings extra consideration to, and respect for, a grueling (generally harmful) sport she’s spent her whole life—fairly actually, her mother and grandmother have been athletes too—perfecting.

Ramirez lately spoke with SELF on what it takes to compete in creative swimming at an Olympic stage; why she’s bored with misogynistic, sexualized associations of the game; how scary being inverted underwater can truly be; and different issues she needs extra individuals knew.

SELF: In creative swimming, there’s a lot emphasis on artistry and sweetness—in a predominantly feminine sport. Do you generally really feel like outsiders don’t take it as critically as they need to due to this?

Daniella Ramirez: I really feel like my objective as a content material creator has at all times been to make our sport extra revered and put it within the limelight—to indicate individuals how laborious it truly is. Folks are likely to affiliate creative swimming with Esther Williams, or ladies diving right into a pool sideways in a line. It’s at all times tremendous hypersexualized, or we’re within the again simply being fairly. It’s not like that. We’re not showgirls who contact the underside of the pool, put an arm and a leg up, and look good. I believe it’s very irritating for me to speak about as a result of it’s so ingrained into American Hollywood that synchronized swimming is background dancing for a pool celebration. There are lots of misconceptions there.

Crew USA, together with Daniella Ramirez, competing on the Doha 2024 World Aquatics Championships.

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In order that’s one widespread false impression about creative swimming—that you would be able to stand in your ft underwater throughout competitors?

Folks at all times assume we contact the underside, however I’ve by no means, ever touched the underside of the pool in a routine, ever. What’s one other good false impression? The freaking flower caps. Can we finish it with the flower caps? Please put that in there. Please finish flower caps.

Apart from previous sexist media associations, why do you assume some individuals have such a misunderstanding of the game?

If you have a look at somebody like Simone Biles, I really feel prefer it’s simpler to understand simply how laborious her sport is as a result of it’s on land, and we all know how physics works. Lots of people are likely to assume swimming itself is straightforward, however it’s tremendous laborious as it’s. Now as a substitute of swimming forwards and backwards, think about going up and down too, and treading water. That’s creative swimming.

In Paris, you and your teammates might be within the pool competing for roughly three to three-and-a-half minutes at a time (on three consecutive days). How lengthy does it take to organize for these performances?

Main as much as the competitors, we’re coaching within the pool for about two hours a day, three days per week, for one efficiency. However that’s simply time within the water—we do a ton of different exercises, like CrossFit, however with our mouths taped to assist with breath management since we’re underwater a lot. We need to guarantee that our lungs are actually, actually robust. We additionally do lots of weight coaching with excessive reps and fairly low weights. Lengthy earlier than a contest, we’ll additionally do regular swimming—we’ll swim laps for 3 hours a day at some factors.

Crew USA, together with Daniella Ramirez, competing on the Doha 2024 World Aquatics Championships.

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Talking of your respiratory, you and your teammates spend a *lot* of time underwater—generally half of your efficiency! Has it gotten simpler over time as you’ve grown in your sport?