Some questions about swimming's contribution to fitness

I had one knee dislocation and completely tore my ACL/PCL/LCL with peroneal nerve stretching/bruising, ripped lateral arcuate ligament complex from bone, etc. It was a hyperextension injury - the knee was easily hyperextending 45 degrees after injury with zero resistance. I had repair surgery then a later ACL reconstruction when the repair failed. I was off work for 6 weeks recuperating and in a lot of pain from the nerve damage (no painkillers). For 3 months I felt like a zombie, unable to sleep more than an hour or two a night. I was in physical therapy for about 5 months (~12 hrs/week). After the injury I was medically retired from all gravity-bearing activities to preserve my knee as much as possible. I was told I would still need a total knee replacement after 10 years. Swimming is wonderful as an overall fitness activity. My orthopedist loves it. I began swimming as soon as I was off crutches; I joined a Masters team as soon as I was released from PT. During my first entire year I had to wear a leg brace but I had a sports brace that I was able to wear in the pool. During that year I perfected the one-legged flip turn and push-off. All was good except breaststroke. I also continued with rehab exercises and weight lifting to strengthen my legs. Soon after my reconstruction I was cleared to do racing starts "taking it easy". I had to adapt my open turns and backstroke starts to accommodate for knee stiffness. I wore fins as the workout directed, but I didn't kick so hard as to cause joint pain. As time went by, I was able to ditch the leg brace and increase the force I used on starts/turns/push-offs. Breaststroke was still a weak spot - it was painful and I was very stiff, so I limited it to swimming IM in meets or timed swims. I had some slips walking on a wet pool deck which tore some knee scar tissue resulting in 6 weeks of pain but with the end result of increased flexibility. I had an MRI and the orthopedist showed me how bad the joint looks with a bone spur the size of my pinkie finger, fused tibia/fibula, and smaller spurs riddling the joint. This past year I took up cycling on a "real" bike, not a stationary bike. It has been superb for increasing my leg strength. My knee is now in its best condition since I tore it up. It also complements swim training very nicely. With the increased strength and flexibility my breaststroke is better, although I still limit it to avoid knee pain. I would have had a lot more trouble cycling without the fitness I had built up swimming. I'm slow and I don't get much power out of the bad knee, but it is non-weight bearing and the good leg can compensate. Swimming is something I can do when my legs don't want to ride, when weather is bad, etc. I am also able to swim more days/week than I could handle on a bike. My injury was in 1991 so I've gotten 18 years without having to replace the knee and I hope to continue much longer without surgery. Walk slowly like a grandma on the pool deck and be very careful of slips/falls. Swimming is an excellent activity to improve cv fitness and allow you to work your legs as little or as much as you can. Best of luck with your knee.

I hear people all the time say that you can't lose weight swimming. I think that's a myth. Just because some people didn't lose weight it doesn't mean it's a general conclusion. Among others, I find that swimming regularly seems to have improved my balance: when I'm standing in a moving train without holding a handle, I can balance more easily than before. I wonder if this is indeed due to swimming :confused:

Swimming & running seem to be the sports that can go into old agee, with swimmers winning in the long time event of life!

Hi Blade, Join a Masters training program...do it! Tell the trainers about your knee AND tell you doc/pt about the training. I have found nothing but encouragement from the others in the program, including the trainers. Swimming (the way they will train you) is GREAT for the heart. My BP and my resting heart rate, weight and waist size are all down since I started swimming, and that is good for my heart. The lower bp will put less strain on your heart and the lower resting heart rate will cause your heart to not work as much during normal activities. Lower BP also equates to less turbulence. Areas of high turbulence (within the arteries) are more subject to clots. Swimming will strengthen virtually all of your leg muscles (some more than others) but do consult the trainer and your doc 1st. When you flex, extend or otherwise move your leg in water, your knee is subject to whatever effects that water wants to have on your lower leg. That water is usually moving, you are rotating and inertia has a field day, applying twisting forces on your joints that we normally wouldn't bother to notice. Trust me don't play with it, consult first. Regarding the comments on swimming and weight loss.... I started swimming (daily) in mid March. I now eat like a horse, every day. In that time I have lost 28lbs and several inches off of my waist, all from swimming. Will splashing around in the pool for 30 minutes a day do much? Probably not. Join/stick to a program and if you are overweight, you will lose. If you are not overweight, you will get into/maintain shape.

Most people who swim fail to lose weight. Similarly, most people who diet fail to lose weight. Your results may differ.

What I want from swimming is an exercise which will work my entire body (This seems to be it). I am in the uk and as such have no masters program. My ability is average, I just haven't had much practise in treading water so can't go in a pool with depth taller than my height. I did have the breathing/head tilting routine perfected but lack of practise has meant I am rusty and this is always what is holding me back. I remember the theory, just need to practise (got time to swim regularly, had a career commitment to handle over the last few months). Someone below said various heart monitors etc don't work well in the pool, but is there still a way to monitor the distance I have swum and my heartrate in the pool? Thanks

There was a recent study published by Stephen Blair and colleagues that found swimming in men was associated with lower all-cause mortality than being sedentary or walking for exercise. I believe that study by Steven Blair is described here uscnews.sc.edu/.../02022009-HLTH029.html "Swimming cuts men’s risk of dying by about 50 percent compared with running, walking and not exercising, according to a study by Dr. Steven Blair" and published in IJARE, 2(2), May 2008 hk.humankinetics.com/.../bissues.cfm It appears he talked about in a keynote at a conference www.nspf.com/.../BlairKeynote.html That organization (NSPF) apparently helped fund the research, the results of which are again described in nspf.com/.../PR_Blair.pdf "Dr. Blair also found that regular swimmers had a higher cardiorespiratory fitness than walkers and sedentary people." I have not read the full study and my instinct is that the results are too good to be true, but he seems to have excellent credentials. The release indicates the study involved 40,000 athletes and spanned 32 years. But, if mortality difference were true to that extent, I think it would generally have been recognized before any study was done. Without seeing the details, I'd offer these concerns... Are these comparisons (e.g., swimmers vs runners) valid for weekend athletes, health/fitness athletes (non-competitive, 3 workouts a week), and/or competitive athletes, or does it blend them all together (in which case, are the mixtures per sport similar)? How does the study handle the situation of athletes that may quit their sport due to injury or disability/illness? Is there a (unintended) bias due to swimming or walking being prescribed by doctors for health, injury or weight issues? Or a bias due to financial differences (affecting health care options, etc.) in the populations for the different activities? (Please note, I am neither a physician nor trained in public health.)

Someone below said various heart monitors etc don't work well in the pool, but is there still a way to monitor the distance I have swum and my heartrate in the pool? Distance is easy, count laps. You can take your heart rate the old fashioned way, count the number of heart beats for 10 seconds and multiply by 6. Or even better, don't multiply by 6, just memorize your target heart rates divided by six. For example, if your target is aerobic, and aerobic for you is 120 beats/minute, then you want your 10 second heart rate to be 20+. Your original questions have been answered in detail but I didn't notice anyone mentioning bones. If you are worried about osteoporosis at all, you need to add some weight bearing activities to your swimming. Swimming does not maintain bone density, but adding something as simple as walking the dogs will.

Bone density I am not worried about. Calcium is the cure for that, though I am just interested in how swimming will help strengthen a knee, which it does as swimming relies a lot on the knee. But when I say strengthen a knee, that means every part of the knee including the bone though. I will look at other activities for that too.

My personal history is that I can lose a LOT of weight when swimming with a good combination of workout frequency/duration/intensity AND if I am very careful about my diet (solids AND liquids). That is true with my cycling also, can't speak to other activities. Exercising so I am tired seems to have the strongest correlation to losing weight. It definitely blunts my appetite for several hours -- I get too tired to eat! and the foods I want are "healthier", not junk food that would be more appealing when in a sedentary lifestyle.