Get in the Swim As exercise goes, swimming offers its own unique set of benefits. Besides providing a good workout for your heart and lungs, water offers constant, gentle pressure on every part of the body, which, in turn, helps improve circulation from the outside in, eases joint and back pain, and increases flexibility and range of motion.
A 2002 study by the American College of Sports Medicine showed that water-based exercises are especially beneficial to those who find it difficult to exercise on land because of pain or physical disability.
Water offers 12 times the resistance of air, so it's an excellent medium for strength training, especially if you add water toys, such as barbells, kickboards, noodles and other equipment. Whether you're 6 months, 6 or 60 years old, swimming is a lifetime fitness activity.
Beginner's 30-minute workout
Like exercising on land, it's important to organize your water workout into three parts: a warm-up, the main set and a cool-down.
For the warm-up, plan to spend five minutes getting your body acclimated and ready by treading water, water jogging in the shallow end or stretching by the side of the pool. Then, swim a few easy laps.
Don't make your first lap your fastest. If you exhaust yourself in the beginning, you'll spend your entire workout catching up.
For your main set, spend 20 minutes doing laps. You can either mix your strokes or concentrate on one. A good stroke to master is the hand-over-hand crawl or freestyle stroke, in which you gently flutter kick and coordinate your hand-over-arm motion so you rhythmically breathe from one side when your head is turned and your opposite arm is forward. Your fastest lap should be toward the end of the main set.
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