Swimming Laps...

No...I'm not that good...not yet!

...is VERY hard work!  Don't let anyone tell you otherwise!  But it's also great exercise!  My entire body is screaming at me today.  And I only swam 15 of them!  BUT...that's 15 more than I've done in about 30 years or so, I'm guessing.  I've been in the water working out for about 15 months now, but I don't swim laps as part of that.  Well...I didn't used to anyway!  Guess that's not true anymore after today!

This is all part of me trying to be more intentional in planning my workouts so that they become routine and not subject to being easily tossed aside when I'm under stress like last week.  Day 1 would have to be called a success by anybody's standards, I think!  I spent some time looking up the benefits of swimming laps versus the other things I've been doing in the water and decided that the early week water workout will be mostly based on laps from now on.  I had no idea how many I might actually do since I'm not a particularly strong swimmer.  I surprised myself with 15...although I really think I'm paying for that now!  I may have to either match that or back it down a bit instead of increasing it quickly, depending on whether I can even move tomorrow or not!

Just so you know...there are a TON of benefits to this.  Here are just a few I found in my own research...

• Low/NO impact on joints
• Builds cardiovascular fitness
• Builds muscle mass (which, if you remember, burns more calories at REST than fat does!)
• Burns 500-600 calories an hour, depending on your efficiency...essentially the same rate as cycling, and about 89% the amount you'd burn running for the same time period!

That research, by the way, showed that it doesn't matter what stroke you swim or if you take frequent breaks...which I SO did!  If you add up just the time swimming itself, my time for completing 15 laps was about 30 minutes, so I figure I burned about 300 calories.  (They actually said the more you "flopped around", the more calories you burn!  Go figure!)

So, I'm no Michael Phelps...nor will I be any time soon...or really even at all...but I'm swimming laps!  And I don't see that stopping.  In fact, I predict I'll be swimming as many of them as I can for quite a while!  And trust me, if I can do this...YOU SURELY can!!!

So go hit the water!  I'll race ya!