All this Olympics hullabaloo about swimming has had me and my friends talking about it a lot. At one point we talked about whether or not swimming is a better cardio workout than interval running.In what ways, if any, is swimming superior to running as a cardio exercise? Is it worth it to switch your regimen from simple lifting/running to lifting/swimming?6'5", 191 lbs, ~12% body fat. I've had experience swimming when I was much younger, but I ran cross country through high school and the first two years of college.
PROTIP: You can do interval training while swimming. The rest of your post is therefore fucking useless.
>>267003Thanks for addressing nothing.>Is it worth it to switch your regimen from simple lifting/running to lifting/swimming?Swimming means bigger pain in the ass of changing, showering, and whatnot at the gym. >Is it worth it?
Hahahahahahhaha I fucking love OP's picture.
Pros: Low impact, aerobic, teaches torso control and stabilization, refreshing.Cons: Dirty people may use the pool, pool may be closed due to aids, over 9k times more expensive for a personal pool than a treadmill, chance of drowning.
>>267021LOL. Chance of drowning?! Most pools have sections under 4 feet deep. If you're having problems, swim to there and stand up. No drowning.Pools will usually only be closed when the gym needs to change the chemicals, so sometimes it will be a regular occurrence you can schedule around. And the chemical stuff will happen like monthly or bimonthly.Real Cons: Smelling like chlorine even after the shower. Turning blonde hair slightly green. Some science suggests swimming doesn't do as good a job of removing belly fat.
>>267036another pro, you will notice almost no pro swimmers are spotty.. chlorine does a pretty good job at killing bacteria that cause spots
>>267036>Some science suggests swimming doesn't do as good a job of removing belly fat>removing belly fatyou can't really spot reduce and swimming does not make it harder nor easier than other cardio to lose fat in general.
>>267043Sorry, used the less clinical term for visceral fat (the stuff that's in your stomache on the organs). The skinnyfat stuff people talk about.
>>267036only if your heart stops or you go unconscious.
OP here , a response to my own question in reference to>>267075>Walking is considered by many health and fitness experts to be a much better way of helping to control visceral fat than by doing exercises such as swimming where gravity keeps the body afloat. Walking at a fairly fast pace for a half an hour six days a week has been shown to help reduce visceral fat, while walking only three days a week has not been shown to have much affect on the reduction of visceral fat. However, doing no exercise at all has shown to increase the amount of visceral fat in the body.http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-visceral-fat.htmpic....somewhat related. A bathtub has water in it.
i just heard rush limbaugh say micheal phelps eats 12,000 calories a day. is that even possible?
>>267108http://www.nypost.com/seven/08132008/news/nationalnews/phelps_pig_secret__hes_boy_gorge_124248.html2drudgeReport
>>267097in reference to that article.>he liver metabolizes visceral fat and releases it into the bloodstream as cholesterol. Harmful, or "bad" cholesterol, which is Low-Density Lipoprotein (LDL), builds up into a plaque that blocks the arteries.is visceral fat different from normal fat in that it has this cholesterol effect? and is the article saying when you lose fat you gain bad cholesterol?
>>267111wow, thats just staggering. absolutely flooring. i cant even imagine how far ahead of my metabolism he is.
>>267111that seems incredibly fishy to menot the total amount of calories (though that also seems a little dubious... I would've guessed 6000) but the composition. why the hell is he drinking energy drinks
>>267144It's really difficult to knock any of Phelps' training choices since whatever he did worked; he pretty much wins at everything.
>>267144maybe they are just like protien shakes or somethign like that...i doubt he's chugging monsters...but who knows.
>>267209This
Last year after following our preseason lifting program (for lacrosse) for a couple of months, I took up swimming. I lifted 3 times a week and on the other days I either swam or rock climbed. I came into the season in incredible shape. I plan on doing the same this year.
I haven't read any of this thread out of lazyness butI was a swimmer for a while, and started my workout to lose weight with swimming. I swam about 5000 yards a day, mixed workout, sprints and long distance swimming. Hardly lost any weight. (3lb in like 2 months?)I switched to interval running and weight lifting and dropped 20lb in 3months.But swimming is sure as hell of a lot more fun.
how many times are we going to have this stupid swimming vs. running cardio discussion. srs running is way more cardio intensive than swimming. yeesh