Swimming, Good excercise or not?

[Ledkr]

I have always loved swimming but for leisure eg. Mucking about with the kids or bobbing about chatting to friends while kids play.
However, we stayed at a hotel over the weekend and it had lovely pool and I realised how much I enjoyed swimming lengths.
I always trying to do anything but the gym so currently do two Zumba per week and also walk as much as I can pushing dd.
I was going to start trying to fit in some swimming too but was wondering about it's benefits.
Is it worth the effort?
I'm mostly exercising for health but some toning and weight loss/maintainence would be good too.

I think it's good for muscles/toning and stamina (if you work hard), but it's not great for weight loss. I read something once about this - something about being cold makes your body cling on to the calories, and also it's hard to get the high intensity you might achieve while running or cycling.

That's what I thought. You see those old ladies swimming for hours but still chubby and ISO der if it's worth it.
I might do it for mental health tho because I felt very relaxed and de stressed.
That maybe because nobody was asking me for anything as I swam tho

You can make it hard work - doing proper freestyle continuous lengths I'll get hot and on the edge of puking from the effort. And I've noticed the difference in my body and lung capacity from doing that.
Doing granny breaststroke, or leisurely lengths won't make a difference though!

I think if you want to lose weight you need to get faster, swim longer, set yourself goals and improve on them.

The old ladies doing the sedate swim are probably keeping active in a reasonably safe sport. It's very cushioning and supportive on joints.

I find swimming very tiring and makes me hungry! I get in a swim whilst dc do lessons. It beats sitting there watching.

Yes swimming definitely helps toning and aerobic fitness, especially if you can do some bursts of speed to get your heart rate up. Pootling up and down trying to keep your hair dry will not do it, which is why the 'old swans' as I call them never change shape!

Proper swim cap and googles and get stuck in. I improved my technique by watching some YouTube videos and can now do a fairly efficient crawl - enough to get a workout anyway.

It definitely makes me hungry though so I have to watch that I don't overstuff myself afterwards.

It's much kinder to joints than any other exercise too so it's a good skill to have as you age and want to stay active.

you could try water jogging too?

?I've an idea that, for any given level of exertion, heart rate when in a horizontal position is lower than when vertical.
I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing or what the implications are for the effectiveness of swimming when it comes to fat loss.

Many people maintain that swimming is not as good as say running for keeping you lean, even if you do manager to exert yourself to the same degree.
Is this true and if so why?
Afaik the jury is still out.

For me the problem with swimming is the other fuckers that I have to share the pool with. ?

Horrible pervy men with goggles leering at you under the water
People swimming back stroke?

Splashers with bad techniques that try to show off (nearly punched a guy once, he was splashing across all lanes)

people like me who experience sudden panic 'I've forgotten how to swim' and have to be rescued by lifeguard

or who make friends drain their pools by a couple of feet so I can touch the bottom at both ends without drowning

I think it's just that in order to get a good swimming workout you need a lane to yourself, or at the very least to share it with one person who is swimming at a very similar pace to you.

Problem is pools are used by people who want to relax and splash about and others who want to swim had and fast, and everything in between.

They all have equal rights to use the pool but there's a huge irreconcilable conflict of interest!

I quite like the variety of people that go to lane swimming at lunchtime (the 9-10 pm slot is a bit more hardcore) tbh. Theres the lovely ladies in the non lane bit, swimming so as not to get their hair wet, the elderly couple where he cajoles her into doing everything, and of course the v pg ladies. In the slow lane theres an elderly but determined lady who is always first in and last out, an annoying bloke who does very bad backstroke, and a v obese man who is doing really well in upping the amount he swims.
Medium lane - me (only using one arm), the fast breaststrokers and slow freestylers. Sometimes a bloke who swims really fast, but only one length - at a time - if the fast lane is emptier he goes in there.
Fast - 2 really ripped blokes, 2 hard as nails older blokes and a lady who I exchange nods with out running.

The only one I dislike is the sometimes medium lane bloke as he tends to let his hands go wide, and has now twice hit me in the head over the ropes

I notice a lot more about people while swimming than while running or cycling as theres not a lot else to think about

I used to have such fun racing really fit muscular blokes who just had terrible swimming technique and were easy to beat

It's a great low impact exercise. Runners often talk about a zen like calm they can achieve while running and I get something similar from swimming when I'm doing a longer swim and concentrate on my breathing. Tough to lose weight though - as I'm always so hungry afterwards. It's great for cross training aswell. I'm training for a triathlon and go swimming the day after my runs and find it helps me recover.

I concur, swimming is excellent for exercise induced euphoria, both during and after!

I felt very zen yes when I was swimming. As I said tho I think it's mainly cos nobody was making demands of me!!

I was 5 stone lighter when I swam regularly. Leisurely swimming is good for toning but the weighloss only comes when you get your heart rate up too so you need to push yourself.