New York Times magazine article on the best exercise
"Let’s consider the butterfly. One of the most taxing movements in sports, the butterfly requires greater energy than bicycling at 14 miles per hour, running a 10-minute mile, playing competitive basketball or carrying furniture upstairs. It burns more calories, demands larger doses of oxygen and elicits more fatigue than those other activities, meaning that over time it should increase a swimmer’s endurance and contribute to weight control.
So is the butterfly the best single exercise that there is? Well, no. The butterfly “would probably get my vote for the worst” exercise, said Greg Whyte, a professor of sport and exercise science at Liverpool John Moores University in England and a past Olympian in the modern pentathlon, known for his swimming. The butterfly, he said, is “miserable, isolating, painful.” It requires a coach, a pool and ideally supplemental weight and flexibility training to reduce the high risk of injury."
My take on this as a fitness professional is that some people hell bent on the quick weight loss solution are going to go out and try to do it merely because it burns a lot of calories, like running. So anyone recommending a workout program needs to take that population into consideration.
Fly requires so much skill to do it correctly and to avoid injury, that some crazed individuals will end up having to go straight to rehab and then won't be able to do much of any exercise at all for awhile, which would be even more detrimental to their health and weight loss goals. For the average Joe and Joanne, there are safer and easier modes of exercise.
For those of us who are skilled at the stroke, more power to us!!!
