Swimming!

So, I had a "lightbulb"moment this weekend.  I was swimming at a lake, and I decided "Hey, I could swim as a workout".  I know, kinda stupid... Anyway, is there anyone out here that swims on a regular basis?  If so, what kind of results have you gotten?  Is it good for toning? 

Swimming is great for toning! However, according to medical studies, it is not great for weight loss.

http://www.drmirkin.com/archive/7208.html

Thanks, White.. I'll check out that article.

I looked at that article an I think that it is a bunch of bunk.  Swimming is excellent excersize and great for total body toning, especially the upper body.

I would agree that swimming is excellent for toning, and I agree somewhat with the article about it not being great for weight loss. I read several years ago that part of the reason is that, as the article suggests, swimming does not cause as much of an increase in body temperature as land exercise does. If you think about it in terms of what warm weather does to suppressing appetites, this theory actually makes sense. Speaking from personal experience, I've always tended to be hungrier after swimming than after doing cardio on machines. However, I can think of no other exercise that works every muscle in the way swimming does. As long as you keep your appetite in check after swimming and don't overdo it (easier said than done, I know), you're bound to see some weight loss, as well as toning.

swimming is also great if you have a leg injury or have difficulty walking/jogging for extended periods of time.  it's much more gentle on your body.

I've been swimming for exercise for about a year now and this is the first time in my life I have been able to successfully lose weight. I swim a mile once per week, and have a varied workout routine the rest of the week. I think swimming builds muscle as it tones, which in turn burns more calories over time.

I do think I owe some of my weight loss to swimming, since it is the only real change to my workout/habits over the past year that has been different than previous attempts.

Swimming is so gentle on the joints, knees, etc, and I really do get my heart pumping when I try sprints! Also, choosing a variety of strokes with each workout mixes it up so I use different muscle groups. A favorite workout of mine:

5 laps: crawl, 5 laps: breast stroke, 5 laps: back stroke. Then: 4 laps of each of the above strokes, then 3 laps of each, then 2 laps of each, then 1 lap of each stroke. Followed by 2 extremely relaxing cool down laps.

Have fun swimming!

I read that article.  It's like someone asking if running helps with weight loss & proving that it doesn't by pointing to someone who might be tip-toeing (however you spell that!).  I mean, I don't imagine you burn a lot of cals swimming really slowly, and it doesn't say in the article how slow/fast/ whatever the subjects (obese, in this case) were swimming.

Doesn't it just have to do w/ how many calories are burned?  I would think you need to know how to swim, get your heart rate up to a fat burning level, & it should help.

No?

Thanks everyone!  Weight loss or not i'm going to try it, because it's something I actually like to do!  We'll see what happens.

I lost 30 lbs and my only exercise was swimming and rowing

I've swam for years and I've also coached and taught swimming.  It is a great muscle toner! You'll start seeing muscles you didn't even know you had.  You'll see great definition in your arms as well as your calves and if you do flip turns you'll really feel your upper abs!  I'd recommend the breaststroke, especially the kick.  It really works your calves and if you concentrate on using your inner leg and thigh muscles you'll really feel it.  If you do the butterfly kick and concentrate on the right movement you're lower abs will be screaming! Good luck! 

I'm really annoyed that that pathetic "article" keeps being posted on this site. If you aren't a swimmer, don't go around telling people interested in swimming that it's horrible for weight loss b/c of what a 10 sentence "article" said. Please site the actual study that says swimming won't make you lose weight b/c that's ridiculous!

Swimming is awesome for weight loss! It works everythign and is somethign people enjoy doing. Please go swim and have fun b/c it's a great workout!

thanks katie. i keep hearing that urban myth being passed around and it ticks me off. cardio is cardio, and if it gets your heart rate up and makes use of your muscles, it's got to be doing something good! my only problem with swimming as exercise is that I can never make myself stay in the pool for more than 10 minutes, but that's just me bein lazy. 

I joined my school's swim team and started swimming competitively - we'd have two 1.5-hour practices in a week, plus meets. I lost about 15 lbs throughout the season, and I have insane definition in pretty much every muscle in my body. I'm stronger than anyone I know, and I haven't set foot in a gym or picked up a dumbbell for at least a year. And when you're 5"1' and 105 pounds, it's pretty cool to be able to beat a guy three years older than you and a foot taller at arm wrestling. Hence, swimming FTW.

My appetite only increases if I don't swim long enough, or at a high enough intensity.  I currently swim at least three times a week of fairly fast freestyle and drill sets, and it doesn't make me hungrier at all - actually quite the opposite. The only time I'm ever hungry after swimming is if I'm just floating around and leisure swimming or being lazy about it.

I think it's all a question of intensity. Swimming is an amazing workout; people just generally don't work hard enough at it, and being in cold water will make you hungrier unless you don't just sit there. You really push it when you go running or when you lift weights; so why slack off as soon as you hit the water?

When you're swimming, it's also important to swim with proper technique - it makes you more efficient, which makes it a little easier, but you're also able to go faster and longer. Also, the load on your muscles evens out so that you're not overcompensating with one particular body part - case in point, freestyle swimmers who don't kick properly end up with huge shoulders and scrawny legs. And they're generally slower for it. (When I started swimming freestyle properly, I started to get abs. I'll take that over crunches any day.)

Go on some sites and read about form drills for your particular stroke. Do sprint sets - 5 x 25m sprint + 25m easy on the way back, or 75m sprint, 25m easy, or 100m sprint, 50m easy. Mix it up. Rinse and repeat. Alternate with distance sets or drill sets. Get some friends and do a relay for fun.

Warm up with some easy freestyle and some pull (arms only; use a pull buoy) and kick (use a flutterboard) sets. I do 200m of freestyle and then 100m each of pulling and kicking to warm up; then I stretch and go into my actual sets.  Again, poke around some swim sites for ideas. Don't just swim back and forth if you can help it; it'll get you the yardage but it won't make you a better swimmer, and it's easier to slack off when you're just going back and forth nonstop.

If you do, at least alternate your strokes. Different strokes are good for toning different muscles. Like I said, I swim freestyle, and I've pretty much become more toned in my entire body. Breast stroke requires good leg strength and triceps, while butterfly is more about your shoulders, lower back, and abs. Backstroke is the one stroke that I've never been able to figure out technique-wise, so I can't really give you any pointers on that - I end up crashing into the wall too often. :)

Don't forget to do a cooldown - I do four to eight lengths (100m-200m) of easy freestyle or breaststroke. It's definitely not a good idea to hop right out of the pool after three or four kilometres' good swim, unless you like falling over and sobbing for your mommy in a soggy little heap. Seriously. Don't do it.

As for distance - pick a distance and slowly increase it. Like running, it's counterproductive to go hard all the time - days you sprint, your mileage should be shorter, while your endurance swims should be at a slower pace. If you already did a killer workout on Monday, don't go in on Tuesday and swim 500m more. It's stupid, you'll be slow, and you'll get hurt. When I was on swim team we did around 3800m+ at a practice, but that was pretty much my only exercise other than just walking around, and we didn't do it every day. Now that it's off season, I swim around 2km-2.5km, and cross-train with running and cycling.

Sorry for the long post! Hope it helped, though.

Squashmeister-- Thanks for the advice!  You must really know your stuff.  I'm a good swimmer, and I've been taught the different strokes, but I definitely need a refresher course!!!

ktcort13-- I'm appreciative that someone gave me the link to the article.. But, you're right, I didn't really buy what it was saying.  Didn't want to say anything, though.  I'll be my own little weight loss experiment!

I went swimming today for my workout after reading this post this morning. My town has a local public pool (which almost no one was at to my surprise!) I swam light to moderate for about an hour. My shoulders are killing me! I can tell i will be dieing tomorrow :) my arms and legs both feel like they got a great workout.

And on CC it says I burned about 440 calories at a light to mod effort which is not too shabby at all!

Cool- Kattastic!!  It must've been a good workout.   I was so sore yesterday from swimming saturday and sunday, and I really didn't do laps or anything, just a lot of treading water.

If it burns calories, it's good for weight loss.  I know the activity log here has a rep for being a little bit high, but it's really never that far off. Swimming is not a complete replacement for cardio exercise, but it's an excellent resistance activity and it will burn off the calories quickly.

Caloric burn based on body temperature...pfft! I wonder if the author of that article discourages exercising with a fan on you for the same reason? Does snowshoeing or skiing not burn calories either, because it's in cold temperatures (despite the fact that it it excellent cardio exercise)? I've never heard anything so rediculous in my entire life. Calories burned = fat lost. Period.

I'm scared to go swimming... I know how to stay afloat and tread water and stuff. I was in swimming lessons when I was little but I quit before I finished. I can't do the front crawl or backstroke or anything. Anyway I've gone swimming a couple of times in the local pool but it's either a free swim for everyone which means little kids everywhere screaming and throwing balls and stuff or just people doing laps. I've never gone when it's lanes, mainly because I don't know how that works, plus the people who are good at swimming would probably laugh at me/be annoyed at my swimming attempts. I pretty much dog paddle.

Swimming can be good for weight loss. I am able to swim for much longer than I am able to run for (knee issue from growing too fast) and I dont notice my dehydration as fast. I hold to it that swimming can and will increase your body temp if you do it with enough effort. I used to do lifeguarding training and we had to do 20 laps of the 25m pool in 14 min. My usual time was 11 min and I found that it really pushed me no matter what. I would always try to better my time so I never ended one of those sessions without feeling overheated and physically exhausted. It's even more taxing when you use an olympic sized pool as you dont get that little half second break while turning and lose any push off momentums if you are in that habit.
Another good training routine is what we called the fitness swim. A lap of the pool then get out and do 10 push ups, get back in, another lap and 10 crunches, repeating until 10 laps had been done.
If you want some kind of an aquatic workout and arent comfortable with swimming or hate laps, try an aqua fit class. Most pools offer them and they usually involve a floaty belt if in deep water. They are really good for larger people for whom speed laps dont really work to lose weight, plus they are really fun! If you get really enthusiastic about it, you'll be dead tired five minutes in while the less enthusiastic people jsut go on with it. I had to do one as part of an instructing class and it was funny how tired a group of athletic fourteen year olds got compared to the old ladies enjoying it socially! (Mind you, we jumped way too high a few times and the pool could have been a wave pool)
I've been looking at my own past fitness habits because I used to be extremely thin and I realised that I was always in swim lessons. I'm starting swimmign again tomorow and my goal is to do it at least twice a week for cardio for probably a few sets of 10 minutes with breast stroke in between for rest and I'll treat myself to the sauna if I do well ;)

OK all of you swimmers... I still haven't signed up at the Y yet.  Planning on doing it tonight.   Just have a couple questions.

Will I look like a dork if I wear goggles, noseplugs, and a shower cap (or whatever they're called)?

Do I just jump in and swim how I want or is there some type of custom??

I know these are stupid questions, but I'm always nervous before starting anything new.