Exercise regimen advice needed

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve been getting a bit pudgy lately, so as of the beginning of the year I started somewhat seriously working on losing weight. My clever master plan has two phases:
(1) Drink vastly reduced amounts of sugared soda (done)
(2) Exercise more

So, for the exercising, I was jogging for a while, but it got hard on my shins and knees. So I switched to swimming. Currently I swim 4 times a week. (Well, 1 or more times can be replaced by playing sports, but that is outside the scope of this discussion.) Anyhow, my swimming consists of swimming 30 lengths of the (large for a backyard) pool, subdivided as follows:
(a) 9 lengths at a comfortable, casual pace
(b) 1 length as fast as I can possibly swim
© pause to catch my breath until I feel ready to start again
(d) repeat a-c twice more

So, this started out being VERY hard for me (my first few times I only swam 6 or 8 lengths total), but I can now do it fairly easily, although the sprint-swimming still leaves me TOTALLY winded. My general question is… what’s the best way to increase this if I am basically swimming to lose weight? That is, which of the following choices are better:
(1) Increase total number of lenghts swum
(2) Swim the same or fewer lengths, but more sprinting
(3) Shorter breaks to catch breath
(4) Increase comfortable, casual pace to something faster (but not sprinting)
(5) Swim more days each week (this is almost certainly the best, but I have to have a set of rules that I can actually follow… and I don’t know if I’m up for actually swimming every day).
(6) Swim in the morning instead of the evening, or before dinner instead of after dinner.

Any input would be helpful. Thanks.

2

If the goal is to lose weight, then you should aim to burn the most energy possible. This is best done by swimming long distances instead of sprinting because you can only do so many sprints before tiring out.

You could definitely do some optimization to your swimming routine. For swimming 4 times a week, I would recommend that you use 3 of them for endurance and 1 for interval training. The endurance days would be where you try to swim as many laps as you can in a fixed time. This is where you burn most of your calories.

The interval training days are similar to what you do right now, except you need to take shorter rests. 1 sprint lap followed by 9 easy laps is too much rest. You should do something more along the lines of 1 sprint, then 2 easy and repeat 5 times. The idea is to increase your swimming power output so you are able to sustain higher intensities in your endurance swims.

3

Every study I’ve ever seen comparing intervals with low-intensity cardiovascular work concludes that intervals are far superior for fat loss. Sure, the low-intensity work causes you to burn more calories while you’re exercising, but it doesn’t really do much afterwards. The high-intensity work, on the other hand, can rev up your resting metabolism for a while afterwards. So unless you can spend more time exercising than not, go for the intervals.

4

I’m certainly no expert, but while swimming is a fabulous exercise, is it all that good of a choice if your goal is weight loss? It definitely will make you fitter, tho.

I don’t know how old you are or anything else about you, but I ascribe to the fitness regimen of “get that carcass moving.” Instead of carving out little portions of your life that are dedicated to “working out,” I try to adopt an overall healthier lifestyle. Walking or biking places when possible rather than driving, eating healthier, and just in general trying to spend more time up and about instead of on my fat ass. Walk around the neighborhood in the morning or evening. Climb stairs instead of using the elevator/escalator. Join a volleyball, touch football, bowling, golf league.

Similar to why so many diets fail, I think you have the best chance of sticking with exercise if you make it a part of your lifestyle, instead of viewing it as something “extra” that you are just doing until you lose x pounds.

As far as being fit is concerned, in the long run I think you are better off if you simply do something/anything, rather than worrying whether your chosen manner of exercise is optimally efficient.

5

Swimming is a good way to lose weight, if you can swim. While I’m overweight now, 10-15 pounds over what I’d like, it’s mostly because I sit on my ass instead of doing anything, and drinking lots of beer. I also only swim 1-3 times a week.

What I mean by swimming is this, he says he does 30 lengths, which I’m guessing is around 750 yards if it’s a 25 yard pool. That’s only a warm up, something like walking half mile to a mile at most. I think this is why people think swimming is not great for losing weight, if I walked less then a mile and said I’m not losing weight then people would think I was nuts for doing so little. It seems like a lot because it takes most people a long time.

First you should find out the length of the pool. Hopefully it’s 25 yards, which is standard for most community pools, but might not be for a backyard pool. Then you should double what you do each session. Since I want to make sure you understand my distances a length is from one end of the pool to the other. Assuming your pool is 25 yards you should do something like this:

8-12 lengths (200-300yards) warm-up. Take it easy
4x 4 lengths (100 yards) give it a good pace, don’t sprint as you’ll die near the end. Give yourself 10-15 seconds of rest between each one.
2x 8 lengths (200 yards) keep these at a steady pace, no need to spint, but faster then the warm up. Take 15-30 seconds rest.
6x 2 lengths (50 yards) these you can sprint, or while not all out faster then the 100s. Give 10-15 seconds rest.
4 lengths (100) warm down, same pace as warm up.

This should double what you’re doing and is a start.

Other things that will help you go longer, don’t lift your head to breath, rotate your body and turn your head. Also breath out with your face under water just before you take a breath. Don’t stand around between each set, and don’t take huge rests, you want to keep your heart rate up.

Hopefully that will help for now. You might also want to try and find a master’s swim team, they will help you with your stroke and give you a good workout. I’ve been to a number of different teams and they like it when new people come in. It also doesn’t matter how fast you swim as you’ll be placed with people of the same speed.

6

Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of swimming might tone/build muscle, which might not necessarily be reflected in lost weight - at least not as quickly as other aerobic exercises.
Also, I seemed to recall hearing something about swimmers retaining fat for insulation and bouyancy, but I readily admit that could be blatant misinformation gathered in the cesspool-like recesses of my mind.
But IMO swimming is a fantastic exercise. Loads easier on the joints than pounding the pavement. I’m kinda thinking about moving to a place close to Lake Michigan, where (with the aid of a wetsuit) I might be able to do some open water swimming - and kayaking - at least part of the year.

You say his swimming is essentially a warmup. But couldn’t he simply go by time? My line of thinking is that anything that gets your heartrate up for 30 minutes or so is good for you. It could be swimming, walking quickly, jogging, biking, whatever. My personal opinion is that too many people treat exercise as some chore, and make it overly complicated, instead of just being more active throughout their life.

7

I think it depends on how one goes about swimming. When I first came back I was around 215-220. I stopped drinking and started swimming and came down to 205 pretty quick. I’ll get to it in a second though.

I’ve read these studies as well and I still don’t know what to make of them. I know some swimmers are extreamly lean, as in 3% body fat. I still wonder if they used rec swimmers as opposed to people who swim a lot. On my master’s team almost everyone is fairly thin.

My opinion was because that’s about what we do for a warmup. It would be the same as me saying I go out for a mile jog every couple of days and thinking I do much. From what I’ve seen, and I haven’t seen the OP, is that people get in the water and “swim” for 30 minutes, but because they have a poor stroke they get tired and don’t do much. It’s almost like when I try and run, I’ll run for a mile or so and feel dead, while I may get my heart rate up I don’t think it will do much for me if I kept at the same pace for weeks.

Swimming is also different then most other exercises. Anyone can get out and run, maybe not well but they will get faster. While with swimming there is a lot of technique to help one swim faster and better.

I still think that if one wants to swim better and get more out of it by joining a masters team. I know this scares some people because they think they have to do races and things like that but you don’t. I can’t remember any team that hasn’t welcomed someone new, everyone is there to swim.

8

I’m a runner who started swimming a few years ago, and doing some triathlons last year, so I think I can help. First, any exercise is good exercise. If you enjoy it, so much the better. I’ve found that swimmers are very social, which means joining a swim group can increase the enjoyment (or just flat out turn drudgery into something fun, depends on who you are). I really recommend swimming with a group. You support each other, and push each other, and just make it easier to show up. Runners can be social, or not, it depends. Join a group if your interest flags. Bicyclists are the least social, which is really odd, because they’re the ones with the easiest time visiting.

Exercising helps you lose weight in two ways: calorie burn during the exercise, raised metabolism after you exercise. If you elevate your heart rate, your metabolism increase should roughly double your calorie expenditure. Swimming will not raise your heart rate as much as running. Nothing does, except for cross country skiing. When you swim, you are horizontal, when you run, you are vertical, so your heart works harder running than swimming. Bicycling is in between. Your heart rate also stays lower because the water helps do some of the work of regulating your temperature. If your goal is to lose weight, running would be better than swimming, but swimming is better than almost anything. I think the heart rate affect is why you here “swimming helps you retain fat”. Also, you can be fast, but fat in the pool (fit but fat), because it is technique driven. You can’t be fast but fat running.

Building muscle also helps raise your metabolism, and burn off fat, but obviously increases mass. And, it is my observation from gyms that runners have less body fat than weight lifters. That said, one reason I swim is because it helped build all those little shoulder muscles and stuff. I gained weight, but look much better, IMHO.

My swim workouts vary, but here is what I was supposed to do this morning. (I rode my bike, so I missed 750 yards of the warm up.)
Warm up: 500 yard swim, 250 kick, 250 pull
9x50 drill (catch up)
400 + 3x200 + 300 + 3x150 + 200 + 3x100
150 easy
6x75 kick
4x100 pull
100 cool down

Friday was
Warmup: 400 swim, 250 kick, 350 pull
10x50 some drill
3x100 (last fast, others easy), 200 easy, 12x75 (every third fast, others easy), 200, 12x50 (every third fast, others easy)
I forget the rest.

9

Thanks for the info, guys.