You go swimming to relax, others go swimming to work on their health and fitness and yes, there are also people who swim because it has to do with their work in one way or another . But we all learned to swim once as a kid, because it’s pretty much ingrained in Dutch culture.
We all live in a very water-rich country and that is why learning to swim is so very important. If you end up in the water for one reason or another, you have to be able to swim to simply survive with lifeguard training near me.
Swimming lifeguard training:
Not so long ago, school swimming was an obligation in schools. In this way they wanted to achieve that literally everyone would at least master the basics of swimming. As a result of school swimming, many children continued with diploma swimming.
Unfortunately, the obligation to swim at school has been abolished for a number of years and now has to be arranged by the school. Possibly in consultation with the municipality.
But given the structural deficit in the budget of both institutions, school swimming as a whole will be at a much lower level. The direct result is that children now have fewer swimming skills than they did 10 or 20 years ago.
According to the government, this should lie with the parents agreed. But the budget is also not unlimited for private initiatives for the same reasons that the government, the municipality and the school no longer have any money.
Fortunately
Many parents still see the importance of learning to swim, and therefore take the initiative themselves to sign up their child for swimming lessons, often at a very young age. But the fact remains that the swimming skills and enjoyment of swimming in young people is clearly less. And that’s a shame, because swimming can be counted as one of the most accessible sports that should be accessible to everyone.
Swimming pools are available in every city, and in terms of equipment you only need swimming trunks. A towel and possibly swimming goggles. You can make this all as cheap and as expensive as you want.
On the other hand, swimming, or at least moving in the water, has become more popular with the arrival of exotic water parks, which are a pleasant entertainment for both children and the elderly.
In this way more youth are drawn to the pool, which is of course a very good thing, But that doesn’t say anything about swimming skills. But besides the importance of learning the necessary swimming skills, swimming is also a fantastic way to work on your fitness and health. And if you do it right, you can also lose weight by swimming regularly.
The benefits of swimming
Swimming is one of the few sports that has an impressive list of (health) benefits. Let’s take a look at these advantages at a glance:
Swimming is relaxing
Swimming is an almost ideal form of relaxation. Not only mentally, but also physically. Of course you have to exert yourself, but the feeling of weightlessness in the water makes the whole experience of exerting completely different.
You do work with your muscles, and because of the resistance of the water it is heavier in some respects, but in the other this is more than compensated by the buoyancy of the water. But also mentally swimming is relaxing.
If you deal with a lot of stress, swimming allows you to put everything aside and clear your head completely. And by putting the stress behind you, you give your body a chance to function normally again, because as we all know, long-term stress has a devastating impact,
Swimming strengthens back muscles
If you suffer from a weak back, swimming is a very good remedy to make it strong again. This of course has to do with the weightlessness in the water. This means that your back does not have to bear anything at all, no weight to bear.
In addition, your back does not have to absorb the shocks that normally would be the case when you are walking or running. An ideal combination, because you are indeed moving so that your back muscles get a little stronger every time.
Swimming increases lung capacity
If you exercise regularly, you have a greater lung capacity than men and women who do not or hardly move. This is not just reserved for swimmers, but it applies to all sports. For example, if you go swimming once a week, you will soon notice that you will be less breathless when you walk up a flight of stairs, for example.
Swimming has almost no injuries
There are very few sports that have virtually no injuries. And I mean the moving sports. I don’t count chess and checkers right now.
Swimming is one such sport. In the water it is almost impossible to sprain your ankle or take a wrong step so that muscles are compromised. The only real injury I can imagine swimming is a major slip on the slippery tile floor. But that can be solved with good slippers.
Swimming makes you happy
Sports in general, including swimming, release endorphins in your brain. Endorphins are the substances that make you feel happy, which can give you a good mood.
In addition, the effort provides more energy than it costs you. This means that after exercise you immediately have energy available for other activities, energy that you no longer had at all a few before because you just came home exhausted from work.
Swimming doesn’t have to be expensive
As mentioned before: Swimming is one of the cheapest sports you can think of. You only need swimming trunks/bikini, possibly supplemented with swimming goggles and a good pair of slippers. And you can make all of this as expensive as you want. In principle, you can purchase everything with a budget of 20 euros and start immediately.
Swimming and Losing Weight: Does That Work?
It is well known that if you want to lose weight you have to exercise. Swimming is very suitable for this, but then you have to stick to a tight and fairly intensive schedule.
Swimming is an endurance sport, just like cycling, running and walking. And in endurance sports you have to build up, make efforts with a certain regularity during an increasingly longer period. Only then will you eventually burn fat.
There are also many explosive sports such as hockey and fitness, but you really only burn carbohydrates. To burn fat you have to persevere for longer, which is a characteristic of an endurance sport. It is therefore important to stick to a schedule in which you can regularly push your own limits.
The general rule is that you only start burning fat after half an hour of intensive and regular exercise. For that you are only burning carbohydrates. There is nothing wrong with that in itself, because by burning carbohydrates you avoid that new fat is stored, but only after half an hour you will actually burn existing fat after which you start to lose weight.
Are there any drawbacks to swimming?
There are actually no real drawbacks to swimming. There are of course a few things that you should pay extra attention to. For example, always use slippers to prevent annoying slips on the wet tile floor. And wearing flip-flops is also very important to prevent swimmer’s eczema.
This is a fungal infection that can be contracted very quickly if you walk barefoot in public areas. The fungus is in the dander that can be anywhere. These fungi penetrate the body very quickly through your feet, when the feet have been soaked and soaked.
If you have a normal resistance, this will have little or no effect, but with a weak resistance it can lead to a fungal infection of the feet.
Finally?
You can integrate swimming very well into your fitness program. If you train many muscle groups, you should always rest for 1 or 2 days in between, at least for those specific groups.
During those rest days you can go swimming, because the load on the muscles is very different, thanks to the weightlessness. In short: Swimming is a sport that is very affordable, and it is also a very versatile training for a healthy body.
