The Athlete

Fitness Swimming

The long term benefits, also known as training benefits, of fitness swimming are that it improves the efficiency of your heart and lungs. Your blood vessels will increase in size and number. It also improves the tone and elasticity of your blood vessels.

The immediate benefits that your body responds to when you begin a fitness swimming program are that your heart rate and breathing will be increased. Your capacity to use oxygen during exertion will be much greater and your general muscle tone will improve. You will also notice greater flexibility in your joints and muscles. Swimming is also a great way to lose some of those pesky pounds that may be hanging around. Fitness swimming is a work out for your entire body, not just your arms and legs.

Before starting a fitness swimming program, you should treat it as any other fitness program. Always be sure to ask your doctor beforehand and find out if it is right for you. Never rush into fitness swimming. You will wear yourself out easily and may cause serious damage to your muscles and joints. Always start out slow and increase your laps throughout the weeks and months.

Diet and weight control play a vital role in any fitness swimming program. Since fitness swimming burns a massive amount of calories in such a short time, it is good to eat very healthy. Be sure to adjust your calorie intake to fit your fitness program. It is normal to lose some weight with any fitness program, but a large amount of weight loss is unhealthy and dangerous. Eat healthy foods that have a lot of carbohydrates before each time you go swimming.

Breathing exercises are very important as well, to your fitness swimming program. If you don’t learn the breathing exercises and do them correctly you could find yourself gasping for air as you are swimming your laps across the pool. Remember, practice makes perfect and the same applies to fitness swimming.

Fitness swimming is an art and your fitness swimming program can teach you the many types of swimming procedures. There is the backstroke, sidestroke, butterfly stroke, breaststroke, and the crawl stroke, just to name a few.

All of the fitness swimming strokes can be learned and perfected with a lot of practice. There are potential fitness benefits from each one. Each one works your body’s every muscle in turn toning every muscle.

Be sure to warm up before each swim session. This will prepare your heart and lungs for the greater effort and reduces the chance of muscle or joint damage. Fitness swimming is a very fast paced sport, so it is best to be prepared and learn all the basic as well as the advanced skills.

After your fitness swimming session, you should always warm down, also known as swim-down, cool-down, or loosen-down. Stretching after each swim helps to promote circulation and removes fatigue products that accumulate in the muscles, lungs and blood stream during your fitness swimming session.