Cardio: The Swimming Workout
The swimming workout is a great form of exercise, it provides a great workout for your entire body and it’s also easy on your joints.
As an aerobic workout, swimming is a good form of cardio. You are best using swimming if you wish to lose weight, rather than trying to gain muscle mass.
The following swim workout will involve different strokes in order to give the best all round workout. Doing this provides variety and it will also work your muscles in different ways to produce the best workout. The particular swimming workout that we are going to highlight today features three specific strokes, however you can choose one or two you prefer if you don’t want to do all three. Just don’t focus on a single stroke for too long otherwise you won’t be getting the most out of it.
As with other workouts, before you begin be sure to warm up your muscles as a means of preventing injury while you exercise. The following styles or strokes below should be done at a “jogging-like” speed for a total of 6 minutes, that’s 2 minutes for each stroke, before you begin your workout.
Start off with the butterfly stroke. Do twenty strokes as fast as you can and then do ten more strokes at a relaxed speed. The next stroke is freestyle.
Do this once you have completed the butterfly strokes. Freestyle for 30 quick strokes at your fastest speed before doing 10 more relaxed freestyle strokes. The breaststroke is the third stroke.
Out of all these strokes, the breast stroke takes the most out of you. Once again start off with 20 fast strokes followed by 10 slower ones.
These three strokes make up a cycle, do eight cycles. If you are newer to this kind of workout begin by completing 4 cycles and work up to completing 8. Increase your swimming workout by 1 cycle every after every workout until you can do the full eight cycles.
When you reach this point of the swimming workout, you can add to the workout intensity by doing more fast strokes during each stroke set. The target is to swim at 100% for 20 seconds following by 10 seconds at a slower pace. You should be able to complete the full 8 cycles in just 4 minutes when swimming at peak performance.
You call the 20 seconds fast and 10 seconds casual the ‘Tabata Protocol’. It takes less time and is much more effective than the conventional slow and steady approach of doing aerobic exercises (running, biking, swimming workout).
You will eventually get to the stage in which you can complete all 8 cycles without much hassle, when you can do this add more cycles to your routine.. You shouldn’t do more than 5 additional cycles total to avoid over-training. Aim to workout for about 20 minutes and no more.
If this is the only form of workout you are doing, you can do this three times a week. If you are also working out at the gym and trying to build muscle, only do the swimming workout once or twice a week.
One tip is to always pay attention to where you are in the pool and what is in front of you so you won’t hit the wall. If you are swimming hard and are not paying attention you could easily bump your head into the pool’s edge.
Filed under Uncategorized by on Dec 11th, 2010. 
