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crabby Detroit Running Examiner. Because I still have plenty of running goals for this year, I knew I couldn’t let my cardio fitness hit rock bottom until I could start running again. So, as soon as I was able, I drove myself over to my local YMCA and started swimming. Some of my running friends gasp in amazement when they hear this. Runners who, on any day of the week can run an easy 10K without breaking a sweat, say “I tried swimming once and after just one lap I was so tired I had to stop.”
How can this be?
The answer is efficiency.
According to Terry Laughlin of swimmersden.com, the average recreational runner is 80% efficient in his movement. Very little energy is lost to other forces, like friction and wind resistance. But the world-class swimmer, says Laughlin, is only nine percent mechanically efficient. Swimming improvement comes by learning how to stroke more efficiently. This is a difficult task because we are humans (designed to run on land) not fish (so therefore we just flap – inefficiently – around in the water).
Following this logic, my running friends who struggle with swimming are expending far too much energy just trying to get from one end of the pool to the other, increasing the huffing and puffing factor while having little to show for the effort. The key is learning how to glide through the water and cover the maximum amount of distance with as little movement as possible. This, like anything else, comes with practice and some attention to good swimming form.
Once you are committed to trying swimming for crosstraining, you can reap the benefits of adding a few swimming workouts to your routine each week:
A great upper body workout. Runners who don’t weight train (or have physical jobs which require upper body strength) often suffer from a weak top half. Judi Kettler, in an article in Runner’s World, says that a strong upper body allows you to process oxygen more efficiently, making your running easier and faster.
Swimming, while offering a great cardio workout as it builds upper body strength, works different muscles and takes less time. Kettler says:
To get a workout roughly equivalent to running, you have to swim only about one quarter of the distance you'd run.
Sounds good to me.
I’m finding there are some qualities I love about running that I can find in swimming, too. Because it’s a repetitive activity (like running), swimming allows me to zone out mentally. It’s meditation in the water.
Josh Clark, in his article on coolrunning.com says that the cooling effect of water keeps your heart rate lower, too. He suggests keeping your arms and legs moving at all times to get maximum benefit. Swimmingwithoutstress.co.uk puts it like this:
Twenty minutes gentle breaststroke (breathing out into the water) may elicit HR of 120 bpm while feeling like a stroll in the park. Try keeping your HR this low on a run! A real stroll in the park, on the other hand, won’t give you enough of a workout.
Next time you head to the gym to log yet another winter treadmill workout, consider swapping it out for 30 minutes in the pool instead. Or make your off days swimming days – your joints and muscles will thank you.
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