Swimming as a fitness lifestyle

Reading this interesting book “Fitness Swimming” by Emmett Hines. I got it from the library…that I visited after like 3 years ! It felt almost holy at first. The place felt so relaxed and silent, I felt my head would explode if I sat there for 30 minutes alone.

The author makes several interesting points:

* The best fitness sports with the least wear and tear on the body. Yeah, #1.

* “There are two things in existence that nobody thinks are bad for you – swimming and yogurt”. (Leonard Goodman in WSJ). I am not sure about the latter – I am off yogurt for my migraines, according to a different school of medicine I also follow (An eastern system called Ayurveda).

* 4 fitness benefits (besides others) : Aerobic Conditioning, Muscular Strength, Flexibility, Body Composition

* Aerobic conditioning breaks into cardio and muscular conditioning. Muscular aerobic conditioning occurs when the exercise causes the muscle to contract repeatedly and consistently throughout the workout. Therefore, even well conditioned runners and cyclists can get exhausted swimming in the beginning in a short period, as their upper muscles are still not conditioned as well.

* Builds muscular strength and tone, but not really bulks them up. For that you still gotta go to proper and intense strength training. But one cool diagram in the book shows a hell lot of muscles used in swimming – that’s good news. It almost covers the whole body – which I doubt happens in most other sports. Squash is another favorite sport of mine that I think is pretty close too.

* Flexibility: Large range of motion for most strokes needed – so there you have it. Also proper stroke technique builds on plyometric contractions – stretching the muscle just before contracting it. These increase flexibility and strength.

* Body composition – the guy makes an obvious but easily overlooked point: the intensity with which you approach the sport had a lot to do with the benefits you get. Body is gonna look awesome, provided you do not just piddle around, but take it with some intensity for fitness purposes.

Ok, thats most of the stuff in the 1st chapter.