ADVANTAGES:
- Employs all the major muscle groups.
- Improves cardio-vascular endurance.
- Kind to joints and connective tissues.
- Not weather-dependent (if using an indoor pool)
DISADVANTAGES:
- Doesn't develop 'posture' musculature.
- Requires access to a suitable swimming pool.
- One word, 'elastoplasts'.
- There is some evidence that swimming encourages the body to increase its fat levels.
If you are going to do swimming as part of your exercise programme, find a pool that provides lane swimming facilities. Set yourself an amount of time (say 20 minutes), and swim laps at a constant pace until too tired to swim with good style.
Rest for a couple of minutes, then repeat the process. As you progress, work on swimming faster, and for longer. 30-40 minutes, 3 times a week, will maintain your cardio-vascular fitness at a good level.
------------
2 comments:
I thought the link was interesting - especially...
"One of the reasons a properly designed weight-training program is so effective at burning fat is that just one workout can give your metabolic rate a real boost. In some cases, this rise can last for well over a day
When your metabolic rate goes up, you burn more calories. And more calories burned means faster weight loss.
One of the things that contribute to this rise in metabolic rate is the muscle damage caused during resistance exercise [5]. And it's eccentric muscle actions (pronounced ee-sen-trick) that appear to cause most of this damage."
yep... unsurprisingly i'm going to be, erm, pushing the advantages of progressive resistance training soon!
oh, and i'm fairly sure that 'eccentric' is pronounced 'ek-sen-trik'
Post a Comment