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You swim for various reasons: You go swimming and lifeguard to relax, others go swimming to work on their health and fitness and yes, there are also people who swim because it is related to their work in one way or another . But we all learned to swim as a kid, because it’s pretty much ingrained in Dutch culture. But given the structural deficit in the budget of both institutions, the entire school swimming will be at a much lower level. The direct result is that children now have fewer swimming and lifeguard skills than they did 10 or 20 years ago.
According to the government, this should lie with the parents. You can make all this as cheap and as expensive as you want. On the other hand, swimming, or at least moving in the water, has become more popular with the arrival of exotic swimming and lifeguard paradises, which is a pleasant entertainment for both children and the elderly. In this way, more young people are drawn to the swimming pool again, which is of course a very good thing, but that says nothing at all about swimming skills. But in addition to the importance of learning the necessary swimming skills, swimming is also a fantastic way to work on your fitness and health. And if you do it right, you can also lose weight by swimming regularly.
The benefits of swimming and lifeguard
Swimming and lifeguard is one of the few sports that has an impressive list of (health) benefits. Let’s take a look at these advantages:
Swimming provides relaxation
Swimming is an almost ideal form of relaxation. Not only mentally, but also physically. Of course you have to make an effort, but because of the feeling of weightlessness in the water, the whole experience of exercising is completely different. You do work your muscles, and due to the resistance of the water it is heavier in some ways, but in others this is more than compensated by the buoyancy of the water.
But swimming also has a relaxing effect mentally. If you deal with a lot of stress, swimming and lifeguard allows you to put everything aside and clear your head completely. And by putting the stress behind you for a while, you give your body a chance to function normally again, because as we all know stress has a devastating effect in the long run,
Swimming builds stronger back muscles
If you suffer from a weak back, swimming and lifeguard is a very good remedy to make it strong again. This, of course, has to do with the weightlessness in the water. As a result, your back does not have to carry anything at all, no weight to bear. In addition, your back does not have to absorb the shocks that would normally be the case when you are walking or running. An ideal combination, because you are indeed moving, which means that your back muscles are getting a little stronger.
Swimming increases lung capacity
If you exercise regularly, you have a larger lung capacity than the men and women who do not or hardly exercise. This is not only reserved for swimmers, but this applies to all sports. For example, if you go swimming and lifeguard once a week, you will soon notice that you will be less out of breath when you walk up a flight of stairs, for example.
Swimming has virtually no injuries
There are very few sports that have virtually no injuries. And I mean the moving sports. I don’t count chess and checkers right now. Swimming is one such sport. In the water it is almost impossible to sprain your ankle or take a wrong step that compromises your muscles. The only real injury I can imagine swimming and lifeguard is a serious slip on the slippery tile floor. But that can be solved with good slippers.
Swimming makes you feel happy
Sports in general, including swimming, release endorphins in your brain. Endorphins are the substances that make you feel happy, that can give you a good mood. In addition, the effort produces more energy than it costs you. This means that after exercising you immediately have energy available for other activities, energy that you didn’t have at all a few years ago because you just came home exhausted from work.
Swimming doesn’t have to be expensive
As said before: Swimming is one of the cheapest sports you can think of. You only need a swimming trunks/bikini, possibly supplemented with swimming goggles and a good pair of flip flops. And you can make all this as expensive as you want. In principle, you can purchase everything with a budget of 20 euros and start immediately.
Swimming and losing weight: Does it work?
It is common knowledge that you have to exercise if you want to lose weight. Swimming is very suitable for this, but then you have to stick to a tight and reasonably intensive schedule. Swimming and lifeguard is an endurance sport, just like cycling, running and walking. And with endurance sports you have to make efforts with a certain regularity during an increasingly longer period, building up. Only then will you eventually burn fat. There are also many explosive sports such as hockey and fitness, but you actually only burn carbohydrates.
To burn fat you have to persevere longer, which is a characteristic of an endurance sport. It is therefore important to stick to a schedule where you can regularly push your own limits. The general rule is that you only start burning fat after half an hour of intensive and regular exercise. Before that you are only burning carbohydrates. There is nothing wrong with that, because by burning carbohydrates you prevent new fat from being stored, but only after half an hour you will actually burn existing fat, after which you will lose weight.
Are there any downsides to swimming?
There are actually no real disadvantages to swimming and lifeguard. There are of course a few things that you should pay extra attention to. For example, always use slippers to prevent you from making annoying slips on the wet tile floor. And wearing flip flops is also very important to prevent you from getting athlete’s foot. This is a fungal infection that you can catch very quickly when you walk barefoot in public areas.
The fungus is in the dander that can be everywhere. These fungi penetrate the body very quickly through your feet, when the feet are wet and wet. If you have a normal resistance, this will have little or no effect, but with a weak resistance it can lead to a fungal infection on the feet.
Finally?
You can integrate swimming very well into your fitness program. If you train many muscle groups, you should always take 1 or 2 days of rest in between, at least for those specific groups. During those rest days you can go swimming, because the load on the muscles is very different, thanks to the weightlessness. In short: Swimming is a sport that is very affordable, and it is also a very versatile training for a healthy body. Source: Optimal Health