Just wanted to share this article with other swimmers. Please see "EFFECTS OF SWIMMING TRAINING ON BLOOD PRESSURE AND VASCULAR FUNCTION IN ADULTS > 50 YEARS OF AGE. The link to an abstract of the article is: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/.../22244035 :)
Effects of Swimming Training on Blood Pressure and Vascular Function... ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
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Good news but the positive effects would probably have been evident in jogging, bicycling or another form of steady state sub - maximal aerobic activity. A better study would have been to compare different activities to each other. What this study says basically is that swimming is preferable to doing nothing.
Part of the point is that "swimming can be a highly useful alternative to land-based exercises for hypertensive patients with obesity, exercise-induced asthma, or orthopedic injuries" 1]. This study confirms that swimming alone yields health benefits for at least some patients. If you can't run, or bike, or row, maybe you can still swim.
It would be interesting to know what the authors mean by "12 weeks of swimming exercise" for previously sedentary adults over 50. I'll bet it's not 5000 yards a day. It is interesting that they found significant drops in blood pressure after only 3 months of what we would probably consider very mild training.
Good news but the positive effects would probably have been evident in jogging, bicycling or another form of steady state sub - maximal aerobic activity. A better study would have been to compare different activities to each other. What this study says basically is that swimming is preferable to doing nothing.
Quite right. From the abstract:
However, there is very little information available concerning the effects of regular swimming exercise on vascular risks.
You know, except for all of the research on other forms of exercise. Why would we expect swimming to be different?
