How good is Swimming

**Ryno** · Posted On: 6/01/2007 1:57pm

Yeah, but I'd venture to say that you use your back and shoulders more in BJJ than you do your calves and quads, which running works the most. Usually if I get sore from grappling, it is my back and neck. For the legs, my glutes sometimes get sore from getting up so many times if we're doing hundreds of throw repetitions. (Think 300 bodyweight squats all the way to the floor) I firmly believe in running for overall cardio, but I've gotten very good workouts from swimming as well, and tend to think that as far as muscular endurance swimming more directly applies to the parts of the body that are used in grappling.

**Neildo** · Posted On: 6/01/2007 1:58pm

Swimming is the only zero-impact workout you can get, AFAIK.

Unless of course you dive into an empty pool.

**It is Fake** · Posted On: 6/01/2007 2:22pm

Really it depends on the swimming just like the running. If all you do is jog you will not build up endurance. Same with swimming light swimming for distance isn't going to help.

There are websites out there that will give you the correct work outs to help.

If all you can do is the crawl running probably is better. If you can do all four Olympic event strokes, you'll have much better all body work out.

**smillard** · Posted On: 6/01/2007 3:06pm

one benefit of swimming that has been overlooked here is that it forces you to control your breathing better and not to panic when you don't have the constant flow of air, similar to when some guy buries your face in his arm pit you will be less likely to panic.

Try to vary the strokes. I like to do this because I can do one fast lap of freestyle and with a shorter rest period do butterfly, breast stroke and repeat. Each stroke will put more emphasis on different muscle groups.

For anyone that says swimming won't work your legs as well as running try doing 50 m butterfly sprints in the pool, your shoulders, back, abs and quads will be feeling it. With the breast stroke your adductor and abductor muscles of the legs will benefit which are the main muscles used when you have someone in guard in addition to the back and triceps.

**fes_fsa** · Posted On: 6/01/2007 3:06pm

Originally Posted by Asriel

I've recently started Swimming to supplement my Cardio and have found that I do it more than I used to run because I actually enjoy it. People keep rolling off cliche lines like "Swimming is the best form of exercise because it works your whole body" but is this actually true?

I find that I'm toning up more after only a few weeks and I find myself seriously out of breath when doing front crawl but is it actually a good cardio supplement?

as a former swimmer... i can tell you that while it's fairly good cardio... it's alot different than running/skipping. switching from one activity to the other is hard and you'll feel it. when i go from running to swimming... i'm winded after a 100m freestyle sprint. when i go from swimming to running... i don't know if it's just me... but it feels like my muscles are tighter and i get tired faster.

if you're getting good cardio from what you're doing... you should just stick with what you're doing. unless of course you've got joint/back problems.

oh yeah... you can increase your lung capacity quite a bit when you swim... but i'm not sure how good that will do you if you're tired as hell on land.

**Tenzo** · Posted On: 6/01/2007 3:19pm

Hi im new and do swimming once a week , think that it is great as it's a complite sport , personaly like to integrate it to kundalini yoga and natural body building . But i think that no matter what u integrate it remains one of the moast healthy things do to all life for me :5yinyang:

**War Wizard** · Posted On: 6/01/2007 3:22pm

If you're gonna swim, snag a copy of Total Immersion. Swimming is very technique oriented and I guarantee after going through the whole program, you will get a lot more out of your swimming workouts.

**Nid** · Posted On: 6/01/2007 3:30pm

Valid original question.

Too bad the retards escaped their cages.

Like any sort of activity generally characterized as cardio, the greatest benefit it's going to give you is for that activity itself.

Swimming, however, is about as benign as you can get in terms of wear-and-tear; and it certainly wouldn't do you any harm as far as flexibility.

But for exercise proper; for making meaningful physiological changes which will make appreciable contributions to OTHER activities, you should be undertaking strength training. There's no other activity whose benefit is easier to empirically measure. And that's where all this nebulous talk of undefined terms falls short.

On the first page, there's at least 5 key-stone words people thrown about as if they even mean anything.

So...yeah, swimming is fine. It's self paced so all this talk of inherent "intensity" or whatever is a bunch of crap. I also enjoy it.

***WhiteShark*** · Posted On: 6/01/2007 3:40pm

I swam competitively for years and my base cardio crossing over into several sports has always been excellent. Maybe I'm naturally gifted but years and years of competitive swimming both long and short distance can't hurt.

As far as running being better than swimming thats kinda silly. Both depend more on the workout type itself than the actual activity. Technique is also dramatically more important in swimming than running.

**It is Fake** · Posted On: 6/01/2007 4:53pm

Originally Posted by Kein Haar

Valid original question.

Too bad the retards escaped their cages.

So...yeah, swimming is fine. It's self paced so all this talk of inherent "intensity" or whatever is a bunch of crap. I also enjoy it.

I guess you escaped right along with us.