Three Reasons to Swim
· Survival
“Only 56 percent of Americans can perform the five, core swimming skills1.” That’s nearly half our country that can’t swim! And over 70% of the world is covered with water. That percentage doesn’t include the thousands of swimming pools and even bathtubs around the world. (Did you know you can drown in just a few inches of water?!) Chances are that in a person’s lifetime, they’re going to encounter a situation that involves them being in or around water.Physical Fitness
Swimming works both cardiovascular health and almost every major muscle in the body. You can also target certain muscles by doing different strokes or workouts such as leg lifts while using water resistance.
On top of that, water will remove most of the natural stress on your bones and joints because of the lack of gravity. It’s one of the reasons that people use this activity for physical therapy.
Increase Overall Quality of life
When kids learn to swim, they decrease their fear of being around water and have a chance to take part in so many new activities. These activities such as boating, canoeing, kayaking, water skiing, etc. can bring joy and new experiences into their lives.
Swimming
also reduces stress! You get to give your brain a break by focusing on your
exercise and staying afloat. Also, just like any other aerobic exercise, it
increases endorphins.
Fun Facts About Swimming
- Elephants can swim as many
as 20 miles a day — they use their trunks as natural snorkels!
- Niagara Falls has enough
water to fill up all the swimming pools in the United States in less than
three days!
- The bikini swimsuit was
named after a U.S. nuclear testing site in the South Pacific called Bikini
Atoll.
- In butterfly stroke and
breaststroke, swimmers need to touch the pool with both hands
simultaneously when they finish. Swimmers touch the pool with only one
hand when they finish in freestyle and backstroke swimming events.
- An hour of vigorous swimming
will burn up to 650 calories. It burns off more calories than walking or
biking.
- Swimming is a great
cardiovascular exercise because you are moving against the water’s
resistance, which is over ten times that of the air.
- Even the smallest world
nations enjoy a thriving swimming pool industry (e.g. New Zealand pop.
4,116,900 [Source NZ Census 7 March 2006] - with 65,000 home swimming
pools and 125,000 hot tub pools).
- The slowest Olympic swim
stroke is the breaststroke.
- The fastest and most
efficient swim stroke is the crawl/ freestyle.2
1Almost
Half of America Can't Swim, Survey Says. (n.d.). Retrieved July 1, 2015, from http://time.com/106912/red-cross-swimming-campaign/
2Games &
Safety. (n.d.). Retrieved July 1, 2015, from
http://www.swimmingpool.com/games-safety/pool-fun/fun-facts
4Wood, E. (n.d.).
The Art of Swimming - The Morning News. Retrieved July 1, 2015, from
http://www.themorningnews.org/article/the-art-of-swimming