About Swimming

Regular swimming builds endurance, muscle strength and cardio-vascular fitness. It gives your muscles, heart and lungs a great workout. For previously inactive middle-aged men, swimming can increase oxygen uptake by 20%, and will allow your heart to pump more bloody with every beat. This will result in a decreased resting heart rate, making your life longer, and your hearts life easier.

Swimming is a useful exercise that can be used in a variety of ways. As you are essentially weightless in water, swimming is the ideal recovery exercise for people suffering from arthiritis, bad joints, or just achey muscles. Swimming can also serve as a cross-training element for a regular runner or cyclist that wants to have a break from there high impact sessions while still keeping there heart-rate up and there body moving.

Swimming can also be used as a method of meditation as you can relax and rewind while wading through the pool and letting your mind wander while concentrating on the rhythm of your stroke and not much else.

However while swimming is a great way to vary your training and give your body a rest, remember that it is not a good weightloss tool. It burns calories at a rate of 3 calories a km per mile of body-weight, which is on par with other modes of exercise but as you are in water your body temperature doesn't get as high as it would when exercising on land. This means that after the completion of exercise, your body doesn't have to work as hard to regulate it's temperature and the calories that you burn after the completion of land base exercise are non-existent when swimming. When you hop out of the pool, calorie burning stops. Swimming is great for your heart, lungs and muscles, but not for losing surpless pounds.

Suggested swimming workouts

Session 1
200m warm up
4 x 100m (60 second rest)
6 x 50m (60 seconds rest)
100m cool down
Total = 1000m
Session 2
300 m warm up
10 x 50m (30 second rest after each 50)
5 x 50m - 25m freestyle; 25m sculling on back (no rest)
200m cool down
Total = 1250m
Session 3
200m warm up
Pyramid - 50m (20 second rest); 100m (30 second rest); 150m 40 second rest); 200 metre (40 second rest); 150m (40 second rest); 100m (30 second rest); 50m (20 second rest)
200m cool down
Total = 1200m


Suggested Deep Water Running workouts

Important: Read before completing any Deep Water Running sessions
Basic Deep Water Running technique is not dissimilar to a natural running motion. You have to reach out with your leading leg and pull through the water strongly and evenly. The front foot should 'land' in front of the body's centre of gravity with a reduced hip flexion, keeping knees slightly lower than in ‘normal' running. The trailing leg should be actively pulled forward because of the increased resistance of the water and actively flexed at ‘take off'. Remember that you are running and not swimming, so the palms of the hands should be closed or turned inward, slicing through the water not cupping. As well as helping to maintain correct mechanics, this will also minimise unnecessary upper body work.
(Thanks to: http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0601.htm)

Chin Depth Water
4 x 1 minute on. 30 second off.
100m  kicking on front
4 x 1 minute on. 30 second off.
100m kicking on back.
5 x 20 second sprints - 20 second rest between each sprint.

Chin Depth Water
10 x 1 minute on/off
100m kicking on fro nt
3 x 2 circles (approx 3m diamater circle)
100m kicking on back

Deep Water
4 x 1 minute circle running
5 x 45 second stiff leg bounding - use arms to drive
100 metre kicking on front
10 x 5m sprints (equal distance recovery)
10m kicking on back

Deep Water
4 x 1 minute stationary running
10 x 30 second free hands butt kickers
100 metre kicking on front
10 x 30 second free hands high knees - last 3 reps include leg kick out
100 metre kicking on back
4 x 1 minute stationary running - all over 42 right arm counts

 

 

Developed by Healthy Medicine's qualified swim instructor Sam Baker

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