In 1968, American high jumper Dick Fosbury introduced a new way to compete in the high jump.

His technique worked so well that he won an Olympic gold medal, and within a few years, everyone used his method of high jumping.

Fosbury's innovation wasn't the only one in the world of track and field.

There have been several other innovations in other events which have been shown to dramatically improve performance.

Learn about the track and field techniques which would smash world records, if they weren't illegal,

on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. And the Innovations and athletics are few and far between. There are only so many ways to run, jump and throw something.

That being said, innovations do arise and sometimes those innovations are so good

that they're banned by the authorities that govern various sports. A good example is the dolphin kick in swimming.

The dolphin kick is the dolphin kick in swimming. The dolphin kick with both feet together and undulate your entire body to move forward.

In the 1980s, some swimmers began experimenting with the dolphin kick

and found it to be extremely effective.

They discovered that they could actually swim faster underwater using the dolphin kick than they could

at the surface in events like the backstroke.

It was only a matter of time before swimmers took this to its logical conclusion.

They would dive into the pool and swim the entire length of the pool underwater using the dolphin kick,

maybe only doing one or two strokes on the surface.

Then they would turn around and do the same thing again.

Eventually, the governing body and swimming realized that having competitors underwater the entire time

and not doing the stroke

they were competing in sort of defeated the purpose of the event.

So they set a rule where you could only swim under water for the first 15 meters.

So if you want to know what the absolute fastest a human can swim is, you probably aren't going to determine that from competitive swimming.

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