Swimming to get fit and tone up?

[doubleexpresso]

I am hoping to start swimming 2/3 times a week partly because I love it and it relaxes me and partly in a bid to tone up. I am wondering if I can actually tone up a bit through swimming or am I deluding myself ? I am reasonable swimmer and wonder if anyone has any ideas / training schedule they'd be happy to share ? I can swim for about 30 mins each session. The pool always has lanes available. Thanks.

in my experience swimming is great for toning. It will help your fitness but only if you do more than just up and down, up and down. You need to do some warm up lengths, then some fast lengths, then recovery, then sprint then recovery and so on. Allow yourself enough time at the end to do some gentle lengths too otherwise the relaxation benefit might not be so great!

I used to swim at least 2 x a week and it definitely made me more toned, I used to swim for about 1/2 hour, doing a variety of strokes and using floats for arms/legs only. Definitely improved my physique but somehow I was still puffed if I had to run for a bus, I wouldn't say it made me rally 'fit' IYSWIM!