The Life Changing Magic of Swimming

As someone who loves exercise, but hates working out, I’m always looking for ways to move my body in a way that feels more like play than work. Typically that looks like playing field sports, rock climbing, trail running or cycling.

I hate to admit it, but as I age, it really does take longer for my body to recover from strains or injuries. We’ll call this the “age factor”. This age factor, coupled with the heat of Texas, has driven me back to my first obsession — swimming.

I started swimming in college. Largely because I was a lifeguard who picked up extra shifts as a swim instructor and figured I’d better learn some things, and surprisingly because I found it to be a mentally calming activity. In the chaos of being a debt-riddled life guard trying to graduate college during a recession, swimming seemed to be where all of my problems evaporated (water pun intended). Having lots of problems, and picking up lots of extra classes for cash, I was spending around 4 hours a day in the pool…sorry hair.

Despite what you’re thinking, I did not become as good of a swimmer as Michael Phelps, and went on to graduate and become a contributing member of society via a social work job. Swimming and I always kept in touch, but it wasn’t until this summer — nearly 11 years from my college swimming days — that I realized the life changing magic of swimming.

Allow me to explain:

Exercise

Yes, exercise is awesome. I won’t argue if swimming is “better” than other cardio exercises. It is slower than running, swimming a 7 minute mile is…so far impossible; whereas it’s pretty achievable for most runners. But swimming does burn a lot of calories, it engages every part of the body, it’s great for your heart and cardiovascular system, it feels sort of like flying… so that’s fun, and it encourages strength and range of mobility through the joints.

Lastly, and then I’ll dive more into the benefits for joints, many can agree sweating and being hot is not an ideal state of comfort. With swimming, while you are sweating and working through a pretty serious cardio workout, it can be 100 outside and you’ll still feel refreshed in the pool.

Joint care

A lot of exercises can be hard on our joints and bones and require very close attention to posture and equipment. Not swimming. Swimming offers the grace, comfort and forgiveness our nemesis gravity never will. Sure there’s posture and techniques that will make swimming easier or more efficient, but you’re not going to make anything worse for yourself by swimming. If anything you’ll be able to build and tone muscles and ligaments, increase your mobility, and cardio health… even with that bum knee or spastic back.

This makes swimming an exercise anyone can do throughout their entire life. Swimming knows no age.

Breathing

This a benefit to swimming that took a little bit of growing up to appreciate. In yoga, weightlifting and climbing — a big focus is breathing. Psychologically, the breathing is very calming. Physically, the breathing is providing more oxygen to the cells, enhancing the benefits of the movement, and regulating blood pressure. For me personally, I can never remember to focus on my breathing and often find myself holding my breath.

Swimming provides a pretty simple solution. We can’t breathe under water (yet). A traditional freestyle stroke calls for three arm strokes and then one breath. Which means, every three strokes the head comes out of the water for a deep breath, alternating sides every time. My go-to for this is to take the deep breath and then I spend my three strokes slowly releasing the air before going for another breath.

Ultimately, what swimming does is provides a very unavoidable structure and environment for focusing on breathing. This is a practice everyone can benefit from. It can be scary at first, or hard to focus and not feel like you’re drowning — but with time, the rhythm kicks in and you’re locked into a magical session of deep breathing.

Which leads me to the last benefit of swimming:

Meditation

When you slip into the water and strike your rhythm, it’s really hard to hear much aside from the splashing of water. Visually, there’s nothing thrilling happening, you’re typically locked into watching a dark stripe move under you. What’s more, as mentioned, you’re moving your body through a very intentional deep breathing exercise.

So….

White noise, no visual sensation and deep breathing. Yes, this sounds like meditation. And it really can be. If you’re just starting out, there’s a lot to keep the mind occupied: not drowning, not crashing into the ropes or walls, keeping water out of your nose, goggles fogging up, technique, choking on a bad inhale/swallow of water. But as you find your groove, the body will go on auto-pilot and the mind will have a chance to enter into a meditative state.

Sometimes, I come out of the water and have truly no idea which direction I was even just swimming or how many laps it’s been.

Life Changing Magic?

For me, swimming really is a life changing activity. I always come out stronger, calmer, less stressed and usually have sorted a few more things out mentally or emotionally for myself.

Ultimately, I always come out of the pool happier — and that’s pretty magic.

I cannot guarantee swimming will be the same experience for everyone. Some may come out frustrated, or tired, or with water up their nose. But I do believe, if your body is aching, you’re stressed, or looking for new ways to exercise — swimming is worth a real shot.