Swimming is an activity that people of all ages and levels of fitness can take up, and is accessible to virtually everyone. From the unit person taking his or her first few strokes in the shallows, to the competitive swimmer training for a race, swimming is a physical activity that any one can perform at their own level.

Your body shape will, however, determine how fast you can swim for a given level of effort. So, while being able to swim fasteris a marker of improving fitness try not to worry about the speed of the other swimmers around you. What is important is improving your own speed and swimming for a reasonable length of time.

The particular groups of muscles used in swimming vary according to the stroke you use. But using a variety of backstroke, front crawl (freestyle) and breaststroke will use all major muscle groups: abdominals, biceps and triceps, gluteals, hamstrings and quadriceps. 

How do I gain benefit from swimming?

Of course many people like to just splash around in the pool and enjoy themselves. The popularity of ‘leisure’ pools with wave machines, waterfalls and slides pays tribute to the appeal of swimming as a playful activity.

But those who want to gain the maximum health benefit from their time at the pool should decide on a more energetic program, beginning with a warm up. This could be simply walking the route to the swimming pool. Or it could be a few minutes on an exercise bike or just beginning tour swim with easy and gentle strokes. The gentle warm up, warms the muscles to reduce the risk of damage and increases the heart rate.

If you are beginning a swimming-for-fitness program and are not very fit, start by swimming a length, followed by a rest for 30 seconds to a minute. Do not exhaust yourself by powering up and down the pool. Take it gently.

Over a few weeks you can increase the time you spend swimming. When you have developed a certain level of fitness you can adopt a program of warming up with slow strokes for 5-10 minutes, followed by 20-40 minutes of continuous swimming with different strokes, ending up with a five minute cool-down period with slower, gentler swimming.

Swimming for the long 3-5 times a week should give you a good amount of aerobic exercise to promote the health of the hurt and lungs. However this exercise will have no effect on the strength of your bones. That is why it is a good idea to walk or jog or other weight-bearing exercise because of the stress it places on bones, helping the bones to maintain or increase their mass.

Of course you can incorporate other forms of exercise in the water apart from swimming, either on your own or in classes. There is water walking, water aerobics (sometimes called aqua aerobics), water yoga and stretching in water just for starters.

You do not need a lot of go for swimming. A comfortable swimsuit is all you really need, although a pair of goggles is worth while if you are swimming in a chlorinated pool. A foam board can allow you to do exercises that pay particular attention to legs or arms, but most pools can provide this for you.

1. Don’t swim unsupervised.
2. Don’t drive in shallow water.
3. Don’t get careless in or near the water.
4. When you swim get out of the water before you make yourself so tired you feel like you can’t get out of the water.
5. Learn how to rescue you or another person from drowning. Then, learn how to take care of them after you rescue them.
6. Don’t swim under a diving board.
7. Don’t run around a swimming pool.
8. Watch for sharp objects.
9. Don’t swim under a pier.

Warm-up. Do 12 lengths (300 yards) of any stroke. Your warm-up should be no less then 10 minutes. You should start with long, easy strokes and slowly build up the intensity, but remember not to go for a full sprint. The idea behind this is to stretch out, get a rhythm and start the blood flowing into the muscles.

4 lengths (100 yards) of freestyle. You must repeat it three times. Take care you must rest for about a minute between the swims. Choose a speed that is challenging obviously, but also consistent.

2 lengths (50 yards) of kick. Repeat four times, again rest for about one minute between each two-length kick; like above a challenging but consistent speed. Here you can also use a kickboard if you have one and don’t forget to kick alternately on tour back and stomach each length. If you don’t have a kickboard, link your  thumbs together with your arms above your head. On your stomach, kick with your face in the water, lifting your head to breathe.

2 lengths (50 yards) of freestyle: Repeat the exercise four times. Best way to do this exercise is as sprints,going hard for the entire swim then don’t forget you should rest for about one minute between these sprints.

8 lengths (200 yards) freestyle for a cool-down: In the end it is necessary to cool down and for this purpose do remember it should be slow and easy this time and should stretch out each stroke.

• If you find that your knees are breaking the surface, hold a float over them while you are kicking. This will help you to avoid the cycling action. Try to drive your legs up and down in the water with only a slight bending of the knees.
• Push off on your back without a float and practice the leg kick across the width. Remember, start the movement at the hip.
• Push off with your arms fully extended behind your head. Clasp them together or cross your wrists, if this feels more comfortable. Now start to kick, aiming to keep your body as streamlined as possible. This will really test both your leg kick and your body position. Try to get your chest out of the water, kick just below the surface.
• Keep your arms beside the body. Kick with back of head in water and paddle with the arms alongside the hips. Alternatively, you could hold the arms with the palms resting on the thighs.
• Now try to kick, with arms folded on chest. Or else, clasp the hands under your buttocks or interlock the arms behind the back.
• Extend arms over your head, flutter kick with arms extended side-by-side on the water with the thumbs interlocked. A variation: hold the extended forearms just above the surface of the water.
• Flutter kick with one arm held back just above the surface of the water, the other resting against the hip. See that the arms change roles every half-length.
• Roll your body through 45 degrees towards the side of the arm held back, stretch back this arm just below the surface. As the arm position changes, the upper arm pulls powerfully through the water and the body rolls through 90 degrees to the opposite side.
• Flutter kick with flippers, stretch back both your arms just above the surface. The palms rest one on the other with interlocked fingers, or the back of one hand rests in the palm of the other.
• Kick with the legs which are well past each other at the front and the rear, the lower arm being extended in the swimming direction and the upper arm resting on the thigh. Change the sides after half-length.
• Flutter kick with one arm held vertical out of the water, the other arm resting on the hip. Arm positions are interchanged after half a length. Alternatively, the other arms lies in the swimming direction just under the surface.

• Practice the arm action in front of a large mirror until you think it looks right. Try to turn your palms outward at the beginning of the pull.
• Crouch down in the shallow end of the pool, so that your shoulders are just breaking the surface. Bend forward and practice the arm action. Try working your arms together and at the same depth.
• Hook your feet over the rail and lie on your front in the water. Perform the arm action while keeping your face out of the water. Try to keep your elbows tucked into your sides during the recovery of your arms.
• Take a float and hold it firmly between your thighs. Push off on your front and swim across the pool, just using your arms.
• Now try the whole stroke, swimming several widths reaching forward after each pull.
• Try next with a pull-buoy. Swim with smooth arm movements, holding a pull-buoy between the thighs. Make sure that your head is in the water. It should be raised briefly every 10 to 15 m to inhale.
• Free first with pull-buoy is another method. For this propel yourself free-first, using breaststroke arm movements. See that your body is stretched out holding the upper arm against the body. Execute lateral paddling movements against the hips.

• Length of the pool should be around 50m.
• Width must be around 21m. There should be at least two spaces each of 50 cm between the outside lane and the bath lane width of 2.5 m.
• The pool must be around 1.8 m deep overall so that the water polo matches could also be played here.
• There should be floating lane ropes. Circumference of these ropes must be between 0.05 to 0.11 m.
• In the centre of each lane there should be clear lane markings of contrasting dark colures. These are set at the bottom of the pool and are there to guide the competitors.
• The starting platform is another important feature. It may be from 0.5x0.5m and it must be covered with non-slip material. It must also have the backstroke hand grip facility.
• Water in the pool must have a definite temperature. It must be about 24 degree Celsius (75 degree Fahrenheit).

You can breathe at the following three points.

• At the end of the kick and before beginning the arm pull.
• While the arms are pulling.
• At the end of the pull, just before the arms begin their recovery.
• Even though most competitive swimmers prefer the third position, as it helps the balance and rhythm of the stroke but the right position for you is the one that allows you to take a breath comfortably and without interrupting the rhythm of your stroke.

So, take your time and make a proper choice. Experiment with all the three breathing positions while practicing the stroke and find out which suits you best. If you work your arms vigorously and breathe out explosively into the water just before you lift your head, you will probably find that the third position is the most satisfactory.

1. Gearing up – Good gear is important for more than one reason – not only does it enhance your performance, it also helps you feel more confident about hoe you look! For all – go for branded gear and definitely include eye-wear. You’ll be surprised at what a difference not getting chlorine into your eyes makes to the swimming experience. A word of advice to the women – frills and cycling shorts in the pool are not considered as good swimming practices so try and avoid them.
2. Hygiene – Swimming is a socially intimate experience – not only are you more skimpily clad in front of perfect strangers than you would ever dare to be in any other context; you’re also wallowing in water generously dosed with various body fluids. Don’t contribute to the filth more than you have to – make sure you shower before you swim, and wear a cap to protect your hair.
3. Pushing yourself in the pool – Everything feels less strenuous in the pool – you may feel like you can carry on for ages it’ll probably do you good to push yourself one day to realize  that the aches and pains are not are not worth it. Establish your stress limit and gradually build up stamina – not only can muscle fatigue become a serious issue; cramps in the pool can be deadly.
4. Etiquette – Only one rule here – Respect other people’s space. Accidental bump – ins and feelers are part of the game, but anything deliberate can take the fun out of the sport.
5.  After the swim-Make sure you scrub yourself properly with soap and then wipe off vigorously.A casual shower is not enough. Swimming pools are breeding grounds for all kinds of germs and nobody likes to take chances with that.
6. Eating – Many people develop a ravenous appetite after swimming and it is easy to justify to oneself that since one has just exercised, one deserves the snake. (it doesn’t help that most pools have snack bars right next to them.) Avoid this at all costs- five minutes of snacking will undo the physical and emotional good that an hour of swimming may have brought about. If you must eat –ask for popcorn.
   

It is very common for budding triathletes, among others, to encounter this problem. A flutter kick uses leg muscles in different ways and demands more ankle flexibility than a typical runner has. The best way to get a better feel for flutter kick is to buy yourself a medium-priced set of flippers (fins). Flippers really give the swimmer a good feel for how much you need to bend your ankles as well as helping him/her develop a nice concise flutter kick.

In swimming, it is not uncommon for an athlete to focus on swimming well at one particular meet during the season. A taper is a pattern of reduced but high intensity yardage leading up to an important meet. Early in a taper, a practice may not look that much different than a normal practice, but at the end of a taper, a practice may be a warm-up, and a few strong prints.

Shaving is something of a swimming tradition that often accompanies tapering for a big meet. The rationale behind body shaping is that the drag created by body hair is removed, and the swimmer is thus able to go faster. It is difficult to determine what difference shaving actually makes because it is always accompanied by increased rest. However, shaving most of your body hair does also remove a layer of dead skin from your body, creating a truly unique feeling as you enter the water shaved.

Get yourself a pair of comfortable goggles. Your eyes and visual health will thank you for them. There are dozens of different goggle brands and styles on the market, each slightly different from the other, and fitting slightly different on the face. A couple
of specialized brands and types are:

Crawl stroke

A stroke, performed on the stomach and using alternating arm cycles and a flutter kick. It is also ma technical description of one of the four legs of a medley event.

Freestyle

Usually used synonymously with crawl stroke. A freestyle race is a race in which contestants may use any stroke to complete the distance. Because crawl stroke is the fastest, it is always used during freestyle races.

Interval

A specific time period in which you must swim a specified distance. A set of ten 50- metre swims on a 1:30 (one minute and thirty second) interval means that you must complete each swim in less than 1:30. if you complete your 50 metres in 50 seconds, then you have forty seconds to rest before your next swim.Most people feel that if you are going to gain the greatest physical benefit from swimming, you have to incorporate intervals into your workout.

Kickboard

A flat rectangular piece of Styrofoam used to isolate leg muscles in kick sets.

Lap

A lap is either one or two lengths of the pool. Whether it is commonly used to designate one or two lengths can vary from area to area and even pool to pool. It is usually easier to describe a distance in yards/metres or in number of lengths.

Long course

Used as both an adjective and a noun in describing a 50-metre long pool.

Pull buoy

Usually two cylinders of Styrofoam tied together with rope placed between the legs. It enables you to focus on your pull without kicking.

Set 

A number of repeated swims at specified distances with a stated rest interval between each swim.

Short course

Used as both an adjective and a noun in most of the world to describe a 25- metre long pool.

Prescription goggles

For those with vision problems, it is possible to order goggles with prescription lenses in the eyepieces. They give a better sense of wall location and also aid in seeing pace clocks and coaches better. Consult your eye doctor for further details.

Barracuda goggles

Some people swear they are the best fitting goggles on the market. However, they are some of the most expensive on the market.

Swedish goggles

Swedish goggles are basically goggles with small eyepieces, no foam or sponge gaskets around the eye pieces and thin double rubber head straps. There is something of a cult surrounding them and a lot of people swear they are the best goggle on the market. After a break-in period of a few weeks, the eyepieces seem very comfortable, they secure well to your head and they are extremely cheap. ‘Real’ Swedes are made only in Sweden. Accept no substitutions from Speedo, Hind and the like.