Swimming

vibez

How important do you consider swimming to be as part of your training ?

Me personally Im tryin to lose weight so sometimes after my cardio i do a few lenghts......

I read somewhere swimming is no use for burning calories, so what do you get from it ?

rubadub

vibez wrote: »

I read somewhere swimming is no use for burning calories

Tell that to Michael "12,000kcal per day" Phelps!

hunnymonster

I'm a triathlete so I do a wee bit of swimming :-) For someone swimming as an alternative to other exercise the considerations include

-swimming is full body (and one of the few cardio exercises to be top lead, most are legs led)
-swimming is weight supported (not weight bearing)
-you learn great breath control and awareness
-increases appetite (in most people, particularly OW swimming)
-great confidence exercise for body awareness
-modest calorie burn, most people swim aerobically most of the time
-can be useful for movement during DOMS

All of the above can be advantages or disadvantages depending on where you are coming from and what you want to do. Most of my swimming is tri-specific but I tend to jump in the pool for a km or so after most sessions just to cool down.

Bog Butter

I just resurrected this thread to say that swimming is great for sore muscles. I did my first workout - squats, lunges, press ups etc. last week. Well the next day my muscles were very sore. Two days later they were still quite sore and so I went swimming. Afterwards the pain had dramatically decreased, almost gone in fact. I knew swimming was good but I didn't realise it was that good. So if you're unfit, carrying to much weight like myself and doing weights and/or a lot of other cardio I highly recommend a bit of swimming to relax the muscles.

Naos

Take a look at Rocky III.

Thread Over