From the ages when a human being was in the developing phase, they are continuously learnt all of the techniques that can help them to survive in this world.
Swimming is one of those techniques which was beneficial to survive in the water resources like river, pond and sea.
From that age of start, swimming had gone to the next phase of the recreational purpose of swimming.
2nd Before Christ Year, in the site of the Mohenjodaro (now in Sindh Pakistan), there are swimming pools found which were created artificially. The same case where a swimming pool is found is also found in Sri Lanka.
As of new kind of swimming pool, England has introduced a swimming pool in 1837.
Swimming was added as a competitive sport in Olympics in 1896.
Health benefits of swimming
Swimming has multiple benefits for all groups and ages. We have listed some benefits of swimming here:-
- Swimming serves as a full-body workout that affects arms, legs, stomach and torso. Swimming also increases strength, tones muscles, enhance fitness. Meanwhile, when you perform swimming, you also do simultaneously cardiovascular exercise or cardio, which affects the lungs, heart and circulatory system and make it strong and reduce chances of low blood pressure.
- Swimming is a good exercise for those who have joints issues like arthritis or a joint injury. They feel less stress on joints while swimming.
- People suffering from asthma also find swimming very beneficial as it works on strengthening the respiratory and circulatory systems.
- Swimming is good for burning calories, however, it must be noticed that calorie burning is relative to the timing of swimming and how vigorously it is done.
- Swimming releases endorphin, which improves mood and helps to reduce depression, stress and anxiety.
Does swimming change your body shape?
Many studies had proved that regular swimming will change your body shape to a better and comfortable level. The swimming styles mentioned above work on various body parts like Arms, Shoulders, Glutes, legs and abs. The more and frequent you do swimming, the increases the chances of the body goes into good shape. Swimming straight or Freestyle swimming is more helpful if you want to lose weight.
Types of swimming
There are different styles of swimming that are developed for competitive swimming competitions. We will discuss them one by one as follows:
- Freestyle Swimming: Freestyle swimming is the classic style of swimming and probably the most primitive style present from older times. For doing freestyle swimming, you should lay on your stomach in the water and then flutter your legs like a windmill wise rotation to proceed yourself forward. This is the easiest type of swimming form in which you can swim for a longer duration.
- Backstroke Swimming: It is considered as most difficult stroke, therefore we advise you to learn this swimming technique from an already known partner. Regarding how to do this technique, you will find that backstroke swimming is exactly the opposite of freestyle swimming. The difference is only that in backstroke you must lay on your back instead of on your stomach and the rest process is the same i.e. flutter your legs simultaneously in windmill wise rotation.
- Breaststroke Swimming: Breaststroke technique is done by those users who want to use swimming as an exercise. To perform breaststroke swimming, you should lay down on your back and then move your hands in a clockwise mode, while bending your legs in a manner so that your body automatically propels you in a direction.
- Butterfly Stroke: Butterfly stroke which is also known as Dolphin kick is most common stroke used in the competitive sport swimming.
Disadvantages of swimming
With every benefit, there are also some disadvantages relatively. Swimming also has some internal and external factors due to which swimming need our attention to be cautious.
- A swimming pool is a major site for the many cases where swimmer health can compromise. Swimming pools use Chlorine as its primary disinfectant used for cleaning the pool’s water. However, Chlorine can be the primary reason for headache, dry skin and irritation when you do swimming for a long duration in such a pool. Besides Chlorine, there is a harmful chemical which is made in a pool named Cyanogen Chloride. This chemical forms because usually swimmers pee in the pool. These chemicals in the swimming pool can cause problems among people who already got serious respiratory issues.
- The risk of drowning is a usual and most common disadvantage which happen with swimming. According to a US report, every year maximum of 400 people die out of drowning in the swimming pool. Therefore we advise that you should carefully swim in the pool under the supervision of a trainer during the primary stages. We also suggest that you should not prefer a deep swimming pool in your primary times rather always choose those pools in which you can stand on your legs for practice. After practising a lot, then switch to a deeper pool.
- Swimming is an exercise in which many issues like Fatigue and injuries can happen. Fatigue due to dehydration is normal in swimming as this is an exercise in which a lot of sweating and loss of body fluid happen. If we talk about injuries, it happens as swimming is a useful exercise that put pressure on knees, joints, neck and biceps which can result in injury in this section. We suggest that you need to regular hydrate your body while swimming and also take some rest if you are doing swimming as a competitive sport.
- Fungal infection is also very common in swimming. Athlete’s Foot, Mycosis, pathogen and much more bacterial and yeast-based infection lies openly in the swimming pool.