Lifeguard swimming every week makes people vital and strong

Lifeguard swimming is about the only sport you can do from cradle to grave. Low risk of injury, excellent for the condition. 

Lifeguard swimming benefits

Fun and fitness

Some swimmers do their jobs completely independently and recreationally, the other swimmers work on their technique and receive endurance and interval Lifeguard training at the same time. One does that for a nicer and tighter body, the other for a better condition and there are those who go for a faster time on the triathlon, another to swim better or …. for fun, I am myself an infrequent recreational swimmer and a frequent soccer player and runner, but I'd love to swim my laps more often. I am convinced that I am not the only one. Now that my knee and tendons regularly bother me, I have decided to focus on swimming once a week this year. Discipline and good sense is what it takes.

Injured

It is a classic story in recreational swimming: only after people become injured while practicing another sport Lifeguard training, do they regularly dive into the swimming pool to train. Often in old age. "As an unfettered sport, swimming is not very well suited to our culture. That is because children mainly learn to swim for safety reasons. We go to swimming lessons and if we have a B diploma, our parents often allow us to choose a real sport." Incidentally, our region has very good swimming clubs, so performance swimming is definitely something to think about.

Wave pool

It does not alter the fact that four million Dutch people swim eight to ten times a year. But they mainly do that on vacation, in the summer or occasionally for fun in a wave pool. The number of competitive swimmers in the USA is only 150,000. Figures about people who swim weekly laps for health are not known. The latter group consists mainly of seniors. In the end, we all end up in the pool. Swimming is the only sport you can do from the cradle to the grave. Whether you have fragile bones or are very heavy, you can always jump in the water."

Pressure force

The advantages of swimming over other sports on dry land are generally well known. One of the most important is that the body hardly has to endure any pressure force due to the limited weight in the water. Swimming lengths therefore, in contrast to, for example, running or cycling, creates little or no shock load. Joints, tendons and ligaments are spared. And that is beneficial for people with significant overweight, weak ankles, knees or lower back problems. Little weight does not mean that you hardly have to make an effort in the pool. The nice thing is that it might feel that way. But secretly you use more energy in the water than on land. "Keeping yourself warm already takes energy. More importantly, swimming movements are always doubly taxing due to the resistance of the water."

Endurance

Another great advantage of swimming is of course that you use all major muscle groups, ie: legs, arms, back and abdomen. And because you also train the so-called auxiliary breathing muscles while swimming, your endurance improves by leaps and bounds. The only drawback is that swimming does not promote bone building because joints are not stressed. Women don't have to be afraid of broad shoulders à la Olympic champion Inge de Bruijn. To build muscle, you really need to do strength training.

Lots of energy

How do you start Lifeguard swimming? There are plenty of swimming pools where you can swim laps, just like in the lifeguard course.

Build it up slowly. Start slowly with 400 meters, swim 600 meters the next time and then 800 meters. Once you've built up some distance, you can try swimming a few laps harder, which will raise your heart rate. The trick is to swim longer and possibly at a faster pace, up to 2,000 meters for example.

Lifeguard swimming strokes

The same principles apply to swimming as to running. You do it at your own pace, in your own way. An extra challenge is that you can train four swimming strokes, because in addition to the breaststroke, there are also the butterfly stroke, back and front crawl.

Swimming is for everyone: "I say...consider and decide...I'm going to swim!" Quickly contact one of the regional swimming pools or a swimming club.