Swimming: Burning That Fat

Hey guys,
I have worked out for the last 3 years, i usually work out intensely during the summer month and take a break during my schooling period. This summer i am living with my uncle and don’t have my treadmill by my bed… but i do have a swimming pool.

I was planning on swimming/skipping beside the pool as my new cardio. At the moment i just swim length and do strange water motions, along with the basic skipping.

I was hoping someone could suggest, possibly link me to an article that can give me ideas of new skipping or swimming techinquies to make things more interesting and possibly intensify things.

Thanks

How long is the pool? If the pool is less than 20 yards (most pools are 25yd) then I really do not think you will be able to get good, solid strokes in. If the pool is your best asset then I would just run in the water and come up with other ways to torture yourself. True swimming is best accomplished in an Olympic style pool of 25 or 50yd.

Tie a rope around your waist and the other end around the handle of a big plastic bucket from Home Depot or something. Take some sharp metal and poke some holes in the bucket. The more/bigger the holes are, the easier it is to pull. Try swimming or running with that thing on in the water. It sucked back in my swimming days.

If the pool is really short, put your hands on the wall and kick in place. Don’t focus on kicking right at the surface because you’ll just make splashes. Get good solid leg movements mostly underwater and focus on moving as much water as possible.

If the pool is circular (above ground), walk in circles around it to make a whirlpool. Then when its strong as hell, try to walk the other way. You will probably get sucked into the current if you try to walk against it, so just try to resist in place (isometrically). This may be hard enough.

Thanks for the reply Njrusmc, that info is very helpful and def. going to try that bucket thing.

skipping?

jrusmc, hss given some very good advice above, the bucket thing sounds really good to be honest.

There are many methods of exercise that claim to be effective at fat burning, Swimming is a great way to lose fat… It’s Possibly one of the best way’s to get ripped IMO. The best fat burning exercises use the entire body and as many muscles as possible. This is why swimming is so ideal in form of fat burning.

Not only do these exercises increase the amount of calories burned, frequent exercising can increase metabolism rates even on days when no exercise is achieved. As the body gets used to burning fat and will eventually burn more calories than it intakes naturally, increasing the metabolism. It is important to intake enough calories to be able to continue this exercise as you know.

Many years ago with my club, I vagly remember, Chop and Change your strokes, Instead of doing one lengh with a one stroke, X amount of lenghs with freestyle = 1/4 of the pool we did front, next 1/4 you turn and do back then Breast then Butterfly.

Or instead of 1/4’s you did 4 or 5 strokes of each repeatly for so many lenghs (Strick form ofcourse must be kept) - Tigershark Style is alos another way but that’s advanced. Ofcourse doing all this we had a coach at the side telling us to change and we also could judge our strokes well enough. Sadly the swimming club days were many moons ago and I got bored of it and went to Boxing-MMA.

My time at Boxing, skipping is generally considered a more anaerobic work - IMO it is not the best exercise for burning fat directly, even though it does burn a great deal of energy. an ideal exercise for a great cardio workout, yes. Ofcourse the more you do this, the higher your fitness levels will increase, and this will help you develop a much better energy system allowing the body to burn fat

Effective fat loss doesn’t always mean choosing exercise which burn fat directly, all exercises have their benefits and it is probably best to use various exercises when attempting to lose weight.

May the force be with you,

Let me add one more thing. What watp said is correct, but men have a tendency to overuse their arms during full body exercises. Every watched a man and a woman go rock climbing next to eachother? Inexperienced men tend not to use their legs much, which is stupid considering they are much stronger than their arms.

The same is true for swimmers, even though in swimming, about 80-90% of your pulling force comes from your upper body. I got my ass kicked by women all through my short swimming career as a result of my ignorance (plus, they were legitimately stronger than I was anyway).

This does not mean you can cheese-dick the kicking motion! Focus on hip flexion and extension, NOT knee flexion and extension! Otherwise you will just splash it in the water like an idiot.

It takes some getting used to but just make sure you are cognizant of recruiting your whole body in the water and not snow-plowing it with your arms.

I swam competitively for over a decade.

I’m at my leanest when I’m out of season and I’m concentrating on lifting.

Swimming is good for a lot, but it’s not the best for fat loss.

I read somewhere that swimming is not as good for fat loss as other activities because it doesn’t burn as many calories as other cardio activities do. Added to this, one feels really hungry when one stops swimming.

I don’t know where I read this, but this article made me remember it…

Why don’t you run/swim/sprint/skip rope? I hate cardio but the more options I have the less boring it is.