If you are looking for an enjoyable, healthy way to spend some of your leisure time, perhaps you should consider swimming your way to good health. Swimming can help you live a longer, healthier life, and many doctors consider it one of the safest forms of low-impact exercise.

Recreational swimming builds endurance, muscle strength and cardio-vascular fitness. It can serve as a cross-training element to your regular workouts. Before a land workout, you can use the pool for a warm-up session. Swimming will gradually increase your heart rate and stimulate your muscle activity; this is easily accomplished in the water. After a land workout, swimming a few laps can help you cool-down, move blood through your muscles to help them recover, and help you relax as you glide through the water. Another thing to keep in mind while you’re swimming is which body part you are trying to target. When we swim, we naturally exercise all of the muscles in our bodies. However, we tend to put more emphasis in our upper body and arms. If you are trying to target your lower body, try doing the breaststroke, which generates greater leg movements. If, on the other hand, you participate in other lower-body exercises out of the water, you might consider doing the front crawl to give your arms an additional workout.

Swimming for fitness is rapidly gaining in popularity because it is ideal for almost anyone and any age. Water exercises benefit seniors, pregnant women, arthritis sufferers or anyone with an injury. One of the biggest advantages is flexibility. In water, body weight is 1/10 of what it would be on land. For example, if you weigh 150 pounds on land, you weigh 15 pounds standing in chin-deep water, hence; range of motion in water is much easier. Also, fitness exercise in water can be done more often because of the low incidence of high-impact injuries and is more effective because movement in water has 12 times greater resistance than movement in air. For pregnant women, water exercise strengthens and tones the muscles used during childbirth. For the elderly, water fitness is safe, fills the need for exercise, increases a body's range of motion and is a low-impact exercise. For those with weight problems, water helps the body naturally rid itself of excess water and salt. In physical therapy, swimming gradually and gently rehabilitates and relaxes muscles and joints that have stiffened or atrophied. There are other psychological benefits to swimming, if you allow it to occur. If your relax and swim with a very low effort you will let your mind wander, focusing on nothing but the rhythm of your stroke. This form of meditation can help you gain a feeling of well-being, leaving your water session refreshed and ready to go on with the rest of your day.

Many swimmers find an in-direct benefit form swimming. They develop life skills such as sportsmanship, time-management, self-discipline, goal setting, and an increased sense of self-worth through their participation in the sport. Swimmers seem to do better in school, in general terms, than non-swimmers as a group. Beyond it’s many health benefits, the exact number of calories burnt in swimming or in any exercise is not fixed and there are other factors that affect the process. It can be body weight, conditioning level, intensity of workout and metabolism. Here is an example of the number of calories burnt for someone with the following body weights: Swimming laps, freestyle, vigorous a person weighing 130 lbs will burn around 590 calories. A person who weights 155 lbs would burn around 704 calories. A person who weights 190 lbs would burn around 863 calories. Following the same example a person swimming breaststroke would, generally burn 649, 774 and 949 calories respectively.

What is the first thing that pops into your head when you think about water safety? Drowning? Lightning? Slipping? All are important safety issues to think about, but you are more likely to get sick from germs found in contaminated recreational water? This is called Recreational Water Illness or RWI's. Here is a brief explanation of what RWI’s are. It’s various illnesses caused by germs that can contaminate water in pools, lakes and ocean. The most common RWI is diarrhea, caused by germs like “Crypto”, Giardia, Shigella and E. Coli O157:H7. How is Diarrhea Spread? It is spread because every swimmer shares the same pool water. A person with diarrhea can easily contaminate the pool with fecal matter. Diarrhea is then spread when swimmers swallow this contaminated pool water. This is one of the many reasons you do not want to swallow pool water. Does chlorine help protect against RWI’s? Yes, germs causing RWI’s are killed by chlorine, but it doesn’t work right away. Some germs, like “Crypto” can live in pools for days. Without your help, even the best-maintained pools can spread illness. So always make sure the pool you swim in is clean frequently.

Protect your child against sunburn by using a sunscreen with at least SPF 15 and UVA and UVB protection. Be sure to re-apply it after swimming. Even a few sunburns can increase the risk of getting skin cancer. Don’t use air-filled swimming aids (such as “water wings”) with children in place of a life jackets or life preservers. Now that you have all this information go ahead and get in the water.