Swimming and Fitness excellent form of exercise

Swimming and Fitness ,  What can you expect from such a sports combination

Briefly about swimming styles

For many people, the bodies of male athletes in swimming sports are a model for male beauty. However, I have not heard anyone admire the proportions of a swimmer. Things are completely different for ladies involved in synchronized swimming. Popular racing swimming styles:

  • Crawl: Crawl is the fastest style that is preferred by most swimming enthusiasts. The technique is easy and the loads are average for swimming sports techniques. The characteristic here is that even with poor technique a higher swimming speed can be achieved compared to other styles;
  • Breast: This is the slowest and most relaxing technique. Allows swimming at low speed, requires a full free corridor of the pool.
  • Dolphin (Butterfly): Heavy and difficult style, requiring explosive work with the whole body. Exhaustion comes relatively quickly, the technique is suitable for gaining speed. Being able to do two lengths without a break is a whole challenge for the heart, respiratory system and neuromuscular control.
  • Back: The third fastest style, loading extremely small back muscles, back and middle shoulder heads. Requires great mobility in the shoulder joints. There are few amateurs who master and swim the style regularly.

 

Water sports close to swimming:

  • Synchronized swimming (water gymnastics): This is a competitive sport that develops the body in an extremely beautiful way. His training at a professional level, however, takes hours of practice in water for years and therefore water gymnastics is not among the most popular for amateur water sports.
  • Aqua aerobics: This is not an Olympic sport, but a commercial and facilitated variation of synchronized swimming, designed for amateurs. Although it is successful among those who lose weight, the energy expenditure of the discipline is very far from that of classical water gymnastics;
  • Aqua spinning: Again, this is a sport that is not competitive and does not even require those who practice it to be able to swim. The load is aerobic and is suitable for fat reduction and heart training, but as a muscle involved it is not comparable to the load in classical spinning or aqua aerobics.

Fitness and swimming

Fitness training and swimming are compatible and to some extent complement each other outside the world of competitive sports. For the average person engaged in fitness, the addition of two or three hours of swimming a week can develop qualities such as: increased endurance, increased aerobic capacity, better breathing and absorption of breathing techniques, greater metabolism, muscle and mental relaxation.

On the other hand, an amateur practicing swimming for health and fitness can benefit from fitness such as: improve the shape and tone of your muscles, improve the proportions between different muscle groups, increase your strength endurance and overall strength. However, it is not right for professional swimmers to engage in fitness focused on visual improvement in terms of symmetry and shape. The weight and resistance training used in this group of trainers has its own philosophy. They use movements that reinforce certain motor circuits, especially in terms of endurance, strength endurance and explosiveness (according to style and discipline).

Weight loss and swimming

The swimming crawl style is especially suitable for achieving high energy consumption over a relatively long period of time (30-40 minutes). The problem with subcutaneous fat, however, is the low temperature of the pool water. Frequent and prolonged cooling stimulates the body to appreciate the thermal insulating properties of subcutaneous fat and to resist lowering it to values ​​in the range of 15-17% of weight for men, 17-22% for women.

If your fat is above these values, you can use swimming as your main means of energy expenditure. In case you want to lose your fat weight below these limits, you can include swimming as a second sport or replace the aerobic finish of your fitness workout with a 20-30 minute crawl at a moderate pace.

Bodybuilding and swimming

Professional bodybuilding and swimming are incompatible and even dangerous during the racing period, during which the eagle bodybuilder will lose heat up to twice as fast as an amateur with subcutaneous fat within 15% of the weight, and his buoyancy will be comparable to that of a piece of boned chicken.

Increase muscle mass and swimming

Most swimmers do not seek sarcoplasmic hypertrophy and shaping. Water polo players are most interested in myofibrillar hypertrophy. Gaining muscle mass while swimming systematically is an extremely difficult task. In such a situation you will usually need an average of 3000 to 4000 kcal / day (depending on your weight). Classic bodybuilding programs strongly tone the muscles, as a result of which it can shorten and this leads to a limitation of the motor range of the shoulders.

If you are a swimmer, you already know how this would affect you. Let’s say that you still stick to weight training, in which case you will need an individually selected program that includes a wide stretching part. Fitness enthusiasts, who strive for quality growth without a lot of fat, cannot benefit from swimming. Training in water could make them more accomplished athletes with an idea, but they will be an obstacle to the desired shape and weight, as they cost a lot of energy that they could otherwise use for growth and recovery. Functional training enthusiasts can take three elements of swimming to improve their bodies:

  • Butterfly sprints are a great incentive to generate an energy reserve to unleash an explosive force at short intervals.
  • Improved synchrony of work between the heart and lungs (lower heart rate, better oxygen utilization, increased lung capacity). The best way to achieve this is by swimming in a crawl style at medium distances (200-500 m).

  • The breast helps to relax the body and clear the mind, which is suitable for starting and completing any complex training program.

Shredded and swimming

As I mentioned earlier, it is difficult to swim systematically and lose less than 15% fat. It is difficult not to make the lesson impossible. I have seen men training for an hour and a half with weights who went down to swim for 20-30 minutes. This did not prevent them from having a clean abdominal press, but outside of competitive sports there are few mesomorphs that will withstand such a regime until their subcutaneous fat falls below 10%, fortunately it is not necessary, there are simply easier options.

Swimming and rehabilitation in water

There are various active water recovery practices that you can use for immobilization after severe joint injuries, when weights and rubber bands are not a possible option, and massages alone do not help restore motor chains. Performing resistance exercises underwater is a rare and expensive pleasure, but fortunately it is also found in our country. Active recovery, aqua gymnastics and light swimming are training activities that have an extremely beneficial effect on the preservation and return of physical activity in the elderly.

Swimming in children

School age is the time when it is most appropriate to introduce the young family member to swimming. Swimming strengthens the child’s body (heart, expands the chest, develops muscles harmoniously), team spirit creates communication skills and introduces discipline in the young swimmer. The time when fitness will become interesting for him will come only in the last grades of primary school, so if you have children do not hesitate!

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