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The best benefits of swimming? Where do I even begin? Firstly, it can save your life. That fact in itself stands alone. I mean, come on.
Secondly, once you are able to swim, there is no end to exploring the wonderful world of water and all that it has to offer! From paddling in a canoe to water skiing to sailing to simply floating on your back to catch some sunshine!
Why would you want to miss out on that?
Especially the life-saving part.
As I wrote a brief blog on swimming just a few years ago, this time around, I decided to take it further and ask a few questions to the experts at Davina’s Swim House. (@davinasswimhouse)
Founded in 2003 by Davina Lopez-Schwartz. She and her husband Geo had always had a passion for swimming and this passion motivated her to give swimming lessons in her very own backyard, which grew to several other locations throughout the GTA.
Davina’s Swim House accommodates thousands of registered swimmers while adhering to its roots and continuing to provide exceptional lessons from professionally certified swim instructors with a home-grown attitude!
You know the drill. Sit back, relax, and read about this lovely swim school in Toronto, Ontario. Here, they will share what they have to offer, what they think about the sport of swimming, and of course, the best benefits of swimming.
Swimming is a life skill, it prevents people from drowning. Swimming lessons are not only about learning the strokes. Water safety is a big part of the course, so the student is aware of the dangers that can potentially appear in aquatic environments. It doesn’t matter if you get into the water accidentally, or for fun, it is always good to know how to be safe in and around it. Knowing how to swim will keep people from unnecessary fatalities or injuries.
Swimming is a low-impact (almost non-impact) activity due to its buoyancy factor. If you have bone and joint injuries, this is the sport for you! When you’re swimming you use most of your body, which in some sports you’re not always getting. It is a total body workout. Davina’s Swim House offers fitness swims for teenagers and adults.
They can start as young as you would like them to. At Davina’s Swim House, we recommend getting them started around the 4–6-month mark when they’re strong enough to hold their head up. It’s a good idea to start them early in the bathtub. Get their face wet. By doing that from an early age they get used to it, which may lead to an easier start to swim lessons.
It really depends on the person. All people come from varying abilities, so somebody might find the breaststroke very strenuous, while somebody might find the front crawl even more strenuous. I would say, in general, the most tiring swim stroke is the butterfly.
A lot of people don’t realize how good of a workout it is because they don’t feel
themselves sweating. The obvious reason for that is because there’s water and you don’t feel yourself actually working out as much, in comparison to a sport like running. But most people will drink lots of water after a good swim, the body needs to rehydrate, and you just don’t feel it as much during your swim, but you will feel it after! 😉
We are not medical doctors at Davina’s Swim House, but we just don’t want anybody to get a stomach ache while they are in the pool. If you eat a heavy meal before you go for a run, just like swimming, you might not feel so amazing. You might get a stomach ache or cramps.
For kids or some adults, there is a gag reflex involved. If they swallow water and
start coughing, they might end up throwing up what they recently ate. That’s why a lot of people say that they should digest their meal or snack before swimming. The bottom line is that we don’t want people to throw up in the pool.
The best benefits of swimming are endless. There’s the child who jumps in the water, turns around, and grabs the wall. That child is now more equipped to help themselves in an aquatic situation.
You will always hear from parents that come back from vacation and say to us “Thank you so much, my child fell in, and I turned my back for a second and they were able to get themselves to the wall, and pull themselves out, or turn on their back!” You hear those stories a lot, and that’s why we love what we do.
For an adult, one of my favourite stories is about this woman who bought a house with a backyard pool. She feared the water and couldn’t swim because of a bad experience. To top that off, she was terrified her child would fall into the pool, and she would not be able to do anything. Thankfully she signed up for swimming lessons for a whole entire summer. Almost every single day. When the lessons were complete, she was able to jump into the deep end, go to the bottom, grab an object and bring it back to the side. Of course, we also taught her other safety measures to use to try and save someone without entering the water, and we enabled her to become confident if she had to go in and rescue someone.
As Davina says herself: “It’s great to teach people how to survive in and around water and to learn to be safe. It’s good for the community, for people, it’s a great sport, it’s a life skill. It’s something you do as a kid, at a young age, and it’s something you’ll still do when you’re 89 years old.”
Thank you, Davina’s Swim house, for sharing all about the best benefits of swimming.