Articles about Swimming not being good for weight loss
Former Member
Hello everyone,
I recently happened to have read a few (probably misleading) articles about swimming and weight loss. I have started swimming 3 months ago as a replacement for other cardio exercises due to knee injury. I enjoy swimming greatly but also I want to lose weight.
What I read is that because of the cold water the body tends to build a layer of fat underneath the skin to heat the body... that also the body doesn't burn as much fat because the cold water keeps it from heating... and that the cold water causes the apetite to rise.
Is any of this scientific? Does it make any sense?
Parents
Former Member
To be honest, I used to be a semi-professional squash player prior to my injury. So I've been doing sports and resistance training for over 8 years and I can say that I have pretty enough of a basic understanding to refuse all this crap I read about swimming and weight loss. Nevertheless, I thought I'd give it a benefit of the doubt since this stuff was the result of (I think) two studies back in the 80s. After further research I've done, it turns out that these studies were lacking in accuracy, preparation and so forth.
I agree with all what you said. It is HOW you swim that determines weight loss. Although I've picked up swimming SERIOUSLY 3 months ago, I have always been swimming crawl and I was trained by an olympics swimmer. So I can say that I have a safe and good technique and I can tell a bad swimmer when I see one. When I go to train in the pool, I see many people TRYING to swim but with wrong technique. Either they got the breathing wrong or the arms wrong or so on. Obviously they never last for more than 10 laps. I do around 70 laps x 25 in about 60 minutes and I feel my body burning for the next 24 hours. I can really feel the after-effect. And about cold water and hunger, I haven't experienced anything of note. However I read somewhere that jumping into the sauna after swimming would help?!?! Also, can't seem to get this.
To be honest, I used to be a semi-professional squash player prior to my injury. So I've been doing sports and resistance training for over 8 years and I can say that I have pretty enough of a basic understanding to refuse all this crap I read about swimming and weight loss. Nevertheless, I thought I'd give it a benefit of the doubt since this stuff was the result of (I think) two studies back in the 80s. After further research I've done, it turns out that these studies were lacking in accuracy, preparation and so forth.
I agree with all what you said. It is HOW you swim that determines weight loss. Although I've picked up swimming SERIOUSLY 3 months ago, I have always been swimming crawl and I was trained by an olympics swimmer. So I can say that I have a safe and good technique and I can tell a bad swimmer when I see one. When I go to train in the pool, I see many people TRYING to swim but with wrong technique. Either they got the breathing wrong or the arms wrong or so on. Obviously they never last for more than 10 laps. I do around 70 laps x 25 in about 60 minutes and I feel my body burning for the next 24 hours. I can really feel the after-effect. And about cold water and hunger, I haven't experienced anything of note. However I read somewhere that jumping into the sauna after swimming would help?!?! Also, can't seem to get this.
