The perfect form of exercise

 

I bet you didn’t know that there was a perfect form of exercise… well I’m going to let ya in on a little secret. Come closer, and listen carefully.

The perfect form of exercise is swimming!!!

Today is officially day 15 of the 25 Days of Fitness! Yup! We are more then half way through it!!!! How are you all feeling? Are you getting use to exercising on a regular basis? Did you forget about this completely and stop altogether??? Let me know your thoughts and feelings.

Well today, I want to talk a little about swimming, since I’ll be adding it into my schedule at the gym. Personally, I need to swim more because I’m a diver, and as a diver living in a landlocked state trying to keep up with swimming is tough. I also need to improve my swimming, breathing and strength to be able to get into the next level of certification and work my way up to a rescue diver and dive master. Hence, the pool will be seeing a good deal of Zara with her fins, mask and snorkel... I can already see how ridiculous I’m going to look jumping into a lap pool with my fins! Hahaha! I’ll make sure to provide pictures for y’all to amuse yourself with!

This would be me, in a 14 mm wetsuit, in the freezing water (60 degrees) in Chatfield Res with a visibility of about 5 inches getting my dive certificate.

I was freezing in between dives. It looks nice and sunny but it was not at all. Ignore the hubster and brother in t-shirts.

So did you know that swimming is a total body workout?? Yup, it works your whole body, in addition it improves cardiovascular conditioning, endurance, muscle strength, flexibility and even posture (source).

Swimming also helps improve your body’s use of oxygen, which is one of the key aspects of being healthy and fit.

Additional health benefits of swimming include toning of the whole body. Freestyle, breaststroke and backstroke use almost all major muscle groups and help tone both your upper and lower body.

This is Dara Torres an Olympic swimmer and medalist. She may be older but look at how awesome she looks!

Swimming is a great stress reducer because it allows more oxygen to get to the muscles as well as forces the swimmer to regulate their breathing, which in itself is relaxing. To top it all off, it is a low-impact sport that burns a ton of calories. On average, a swimmer can burn as many calories in an hour as a runner who runs six miles in one hour (Source).

Diving in the Rocky Mountains… freezing, crappy visibility and 30 lbs of extra weight are annoying, but the idea is priceless. 

 

   So grab your swimsuits and head over to the pool. Burn off those calories, tone your body and lose weight!