Swimming

Swimming is great exercise (I'm not a great swimmer and would rather run but as a triathlon wannabe I don't want to embarrass myself too badly next June) but as with every other activity the weight loss comes from maintaining a caloric deficit consistently over time.

Swimmimg is great for fitness. Backstroke & front crawl are great strokes. Many people like water aerobics too. It is common to feel very hungry after swimming, so plan an extra snacks into your calories for the day.

Swimming by itself does not create weight loss. You must eat fewer calories than you burn. Set up your mfp stats, at sedenatry, to lose 1 lb per week, weigh all food, and log it. Eat back half your exercise calories in addition to the goal mfp gives you, because that number does not account for exercise. Weight loss happens in the kitchen, fitness happens at thE pool. Good luck!

I swim Mon-Fri, as mentioned above, not noticed a massive weight loss from it alone, but it sure helps boost my calorie burn.
I tend to do (in a 25m pool):
20/40 front crawl warm up
30 with my hand fin thingys to up the resistance
5 normal front crawl
5 breaststroke
5 front crawl
5 breaststroke (these sets of 5 I use as a 'rest if I am doing more than 2km)
10 front crawl (sometimes with float to take my legs out and focus on arms)

I get more out of breathe with breaststroke now than with front crawl, so am planning on upping my laps in that - backstroke needs to really be done in a clear lane for me, as I still haven't mastered 'straight' swimming, but I feel that the next day even from doing 10.

love swimming

BrianSharpe wrote: »

Swimming is great exercise (I'm not a great swimmer and would rather run but as a triathlon wannabe I don't want to embarrass myself too badly next June) but as with every other activity the weight loss comes from maintaining a caloric deficit consistently over time.

Agreed. It's a great exercise and can have numerous benefits... but swimming to lose weight is like swimming against the current if your diet/intake isn't in check.

I picked my gym because it was the only one near me with an indoor pool! I love to swim and did swimteam when I was younger. I don't miss getting in the (outdoor) pool at 8am when it was 65 degrees out (64 degrees or colder meant practice was cancelled), but I miss the motivation that came from being on a team. Swimming is so calming to me. I try to get in 10-20 laps (50's) and some days will push for 32, which I think is a mile. Just depends on how much time I have.

if you want to get your heartrate up while swimming - do some intervals/sets

so a standard swim for me will be 200 w/u; 4x50 drill; main set of something like 20X25 on 30 (sprint the 25yds, and then start the next interval at the 30sec mark - you could adjust the time); then 200 cool down

i'll happily post other swim workouts - i do everything from 1000-4500yd swims

Often beginners can mistake breathlessness from swimming with having a high HR. It's quite feasible for someone to appear out of breath whilst swimming, believe therefore that they are 'working hard' but in fact not have an especially high HR, they just have poor breathing technique.

This is my absolute favorite cardio exercise. Of course, I may be biased as I have been swimming competitively for my 7 years.

Swimming can be an amazing workout if you are able to get your heart rate up. Butterfly is the best stroke to achieve this, but be very careful, as you can injure yourself easily with improper form.

AuburnDawg wrote: »

Just curious if anyone out there is swimming for weight loss and if so, what have you found is successful regarding workouts. I cannot do butterfly or breast stroke so backstroke and freestyle are my 2 strokes.

I really enjoy swim workouts and I find it helpful to swim with a class twice a week. The class days are my aerobic workout days because we push ourselves further, harder and with shorter intervals when we working out together, cheering each other on.

The other days of the week I swim by myself, working on my technique with the goal of keeping it interesting while keeping my heart rate above 80% of maximum while swimming and allowing it to come down to 70% of maximum during the rest between lengths.

A good coach can be invaluable at pointing you in the right direction on what is most important for you to work on. We are always doing seven or seventeen things wrong while swimming, but the question is, which one should you be working on next. A coach gives direction to your days swimming alone.

Probably your workouts will be based on what you do in class, with lots of modifications so you spend time working on your technique while swimming slowly, but with enough resistance to keep your heart rate up. A typical workout is a warmup with steadily increasing effort, followed by a main set with intervals to work on aerobic capacity or ladders to work on increasing speed. The distances will vary based on your swimming ability, but here is a simple ladder workout I might do:

Warm-up:
100 smooth
50 kick
50 drill
50 pick up the pace
50 easy
(repeat four 50's)
Main set:
75 fast
25 kick
2x50 recover
50 fast
50 kick
2x50 recover
25 fast
75 kick
2x50 recover
100 fast
rest
(repeat main set three times)