For all round fitness, it is hard to beat swimming. General fitness includes three elements: - flexibility, strength & endurance. Swimming can involve all three elements. As a bonus, swimming with the face submerged and diaphragm free produces mental and physical relaxation. For those with muscle or joint problems, excess weight or pain, water is the medium par excellence in which to exercise.
Low impact.
High impact activities, e.g. running and some keep fit exercises, where both legs contact the ground at once, as in star jumps, stress the bones. This is particularly a problem in the overweight person and increases wear and tear in joints, and over-use injuries generally. Joint impact is obviously not a problem in the water. Exercising against the natural resistance of the water, however, can help strengthen bones, protecting them against osteoporosis (thinning and fractures as calcium levels decrease with age).
Reduction of pain and relaxation.
Whatever levels of pain, or the site of pain, with correct guidance most people can swim gently, floating or sculling on the back when the pain is severe.
Knee pain - the bent knee position may irritate the joint, so avoid breaststroke. Backstroke may feel easier.
For acute shoulder pain modify the straight arm of backstroke to a bent arm (a shorter lever). Progress to straightening the arm in future swims, to increase mobility around the shoulder, or try breaststroke.
Spinal pain - swimming on your front with the face out of the water causes excess neck tightening. The strain will transmit down to the low back as the spinal muscles run from head to sacrum. You cannot have a relaxed, efficient swimming style in this position, and will do more harm than good. Swim on your back if you cannot immerse your face. Goggles, a cap and some guidance on comfortable breathing in water can help. Ask a swimming instructor to show you. Practice a streamlined glide with a float held in front, arms outstretched.
For neck pain or general tension, lie on your back, perhaps holding the rail, and flex your neck back and forth, moving ear to shoulder while looking at the sky or ceiling. In addition, if you can keep afloat without holding onto the bar, side flexing your back between the shoulder blades, produces significant relaxation.
Generally, if moving the painful part of your body in water increases pain, try moving the rest of the body instead. The large limb movements will "shut the pain gate ". This is an expression to describe the flooding of the nervous system with movement sensations. Nerves which carry the sensation of limb movement are large, while nerves which carry the sensation of pain are small. Messages from large nerves compete successfully with the smaller nerves, and less pain is felt. The key to a deep feeling of relaxation after swimming is a good swimming style with the neck relaxed and the breathing free and rhythmical.
Try to vary your swimming strokes. Swim at a pace you can sustain for 30-40 minutes, to encourage cardio-vascular fitness. The heart and lungs need to pump at an increased rate to flush out fatty deposits in the arteries following stress, smoking and high cholesterol intake. In addition, this length of time spent swimming will increase the metabolic rate for about 24 hours, so will contribute to the burning of calories and weight loss. The 30 minutes of lengths can be interspersed by stretching and strengthening exercises, designed for your particular health problems. Avoid swimming as fast as possible or counting lengths. Think instead of the swimming as a movement meditation and lose yourself in the rhythm if possible.
To strengthen muscles work against the resistance of the water, e.g. for deltoid (round the shoulder) try taking the straight arm out to the side. To increase resistance, move the arm more quickly,or hold a paddle or float, in your arm, to increase the surface area. With time, increase the number of repetitions.
For abdominals - try long armed doggie paddle, tread water while doing scissors with legs, sit like a chair against the pool wall, and push a float under the water with your arms.
We may feel too tired to swim, but often tiredness is experienced as a result of tense muscles holding the body during sedentary tasks, or repetitive or painful activities. The flow of swimming can increase blood circulation in inflamed or tight soft tissues, and leave you refreshed. Even with chronic fatigue, slow gentle swimming, lasting for only a few minutes, has helped patients of mine to progress. If starting to swim after injury or surgery, do so little the first day that it can barely help you. Wait 24 hours and if you have no setbacks, increase the amount of swimming a little each day. Better still, ask a physiotherapist to give you specific exercises and show you how to adapt your swimming strokes to your medical condition.
Whether fit or in need of re-habilitation, swimming well can set you on a path to health.
"Still glides the Stream, and shall forever glide.
The form remains, the function never dies"
Wordsworth