Swimming Fitness

Talks about benefit of swimming.

An excellent method of achieving and maintaining all-round fitness is by swimming regularly.
It uses all the muscle groups of the body and enhances muscular, cardiovascular and respiratory fitness. It is an especially good form of exercise because the body weight is totally supported by the water, which reduces the risk of strain or damage to your joints or muscles. For this reason, it is an activity that can be enjoyed by elderly people and those with back or other physical problems.
If you cannot swim you can learn to swim at any age and most local clubs offer swimming lessons. Make it easy for yourself by getting a timetable from your local pool and keeping it on the fridge door. Some clubs offer season tickets, which are cheaper than individual tickets. You need to swim continuously and vigorously for about 10 minutes to get any benefit at all and, ideally, you need to swim at a reasonable pace for up to 30 minutes on three days of the week to achieve a good level of fitness. However, two sessions a week will still produce a noticeable benefit. Your body will become toned, with better posture and more flexibility. After only a couple of weeks you should notice the difference in your stomach muscles and shoulder muscles.
It is best to vary your stroke between breaststroke, crawl, backstroke, and butterfly. If you know only one or two strokes, why not invest in a few lessons to make your trips more interesting as well as more rewarding in fitness terms.
You can monitor your progress and achievements when you swim at a pool, by keeping a note of how many lengths you do every 20 minutes or every 30 minutes.
FACTFILE Calories burnt per minute (based on swimming 18 m/20yds a minute): front crawl 4.5-5.4
backstroke 3.5-4.3;
breastroke 4.5-5.4
Benefits: strength, endurance, flexibility, mobility Works on: arms, stomach, shoulders, back and legs Complementary exercises: weight/circuit training EXERCISES TO DO IN THE POOL

• Tread water out of your depth for about 10 minutes, pushing your legs down and out.
• Take a deep breath and push yourself down to the bottom of the pool, then push yourself up while you are breathing out (respiratory benefit).
• Swim one length as fast as you can , then swim slowly back (or get out of pool and walk back to the start). Repeat several times.
• Hold the edge of the pool with outstretched arms, assume the front crawl position with your head immersed in the water. Kick with your legs as you count to five, turn your head to the side and breathe in, return your hand to the water and keep kicking.