"Summertime and the swimmin' isn't easy"

When it comes to cardiovascular activities there are plenty of options whether it is running, cycling, rowing (urging), or swimming.  As much as I enjoy cycling and rowing (I have never been a fan of running and never will be), my favorite cardiovascular activity, especially during the spring and summer months in sunny California, is swimming.  My love for swimming developed when I was in high school.  Between varsity water polo, varsity swim team, and club water polo during the off seasons, there was hardly a time during high school that I was not swimming.  After being accepted to LMU, I tried out for the men's water polo team as a walk-on and made the team.  However, I realized it was more important to focus on my academics and future career and left the team at the beginning of my freshman fall semester.  After that, I went from swimming almost daily to hardly ever.  It was not until the beginning of this semester when I started blogging that I began swimming again.  It was anything but easy!  However, the health and fitness benefits of swimming are well worth the struggle and have refueled my love for the water.

Featured Exercise: Swimming

Besides the obvious improvements to cardiovascular endurance, swimming has other less obvious health and fitness benefits including but not limited to:

1. Relief for load-bearing muscles/joints: Water buoyancy helps reduce the apparent weight of the human body.  This temporary load reduction on joints and muscles, particularly for those who are overweight or train with heavy weights at the gym, can help decompress joints, allowing for increased blood flow and repair as well as allow tight, load-bearing muscles such as the lower back to release. 
2. Strength training: Water is twelve times as dense as air which means that the act of propelling yourself through the water adds resistance training to the workout.  The faster and harder you attempt to pull yourself through the water, the higher the resistance and muscle exertion.
3. Improved flexibility: Swimming puts the body through a broad range of motion that helps joints and ligaments stay loose and flexible. The arms move in wide arcs, the hips are engaged as the legs scissor through the water, and the head and spine twist from side to side.
4. Burns calories: Water (at appropriate temperatures) is a much better thermoregulator than air and allows for sustained cardiovascular activity without overheating.  The chart below quantifies the number of calories burned per hour for various body weights while doing various aquatic activities.

If you have access to a pool and do not mind showing a little skin I highly recommend swimming for an hour the next time want to burn calories, improve your strength and aerobic stamina, and have a good time while you do it.

Final approach in sight. Over and out.

MJH