SWIMMER Magazine

Fitness, confidence, and social benefits all help draw more people to you If you’re looking to give your appearance a boost, you could do much worse than starting a swimming routine. Swimming is a lifelong sport that can actually save your life. But there’s more to it than that. Swimming is also a great way to improve health, fitness, and possibly even make you more attractive too.

Goals are great, but some can be more effective than others If you swam competitively growing up, you’ve likely endured many goal-setting meetings with your coaches. Often, these sessions focused on achieving a specific time, such as a cut for a state championship or meeting a threshold to move up to a more advanced training group. In such cases, and largely for any kind of competitive swimming, getting faster was likely the primary focus.

At the most basic level, you lose weight when you burn more calories than you consume. But science is learning there’s lots of nuance to weight loss, which is influenced by factors including hormones, sleep quality, nutrient density, stress, the quirks of your own body, and so much more. Still, if you’re trying to shed some excess weight, changing your eating patterns and adding more physical activity can help you achieve your goal, and swimming can and should be part of that picture.

Swimming is often the weakest link for triathletes but it doesn’t have to be Many triathletes come to the sport from running or cycling, which can mean that swimming is their weakest link. It’s a common issue among triathletes, but one that Masters swimming can help solve. Here, we dive into what triathletes should look for or avoid when joining a Masters swimming group and how to make the most of your time in the water.

The pool can be a terrific proxy for open water training Open water swimmers know training in the conditions you’ll find on event day is the best possible training. This means if you’re preparing for an ocean swim, it’s best if you can get into the ocean several times a week. But for many people, getting to their preferred open water training location is simply not possible. Perhaps you’re in a landlocked state or you live too far from an open waterway to make it accessible regularly.

Masters Swimming beckons to many former competitive swimmers and, if you’re among them, you may be wondering how best to get back into competitive swimming. The good news is, even if decades have passed since your last race, you can and should get back into swimming when the time is right, as it provides a wide range of fitness and health benefits and is truly a lifelong sport. U.S. Masters Swimming offers a community for adult swimmers of all ages and ability levels.

When I moved to Boston in the early aughts, I didn’t know anyone other than my brother. I also had no idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I’d been a swimmer all my life, but I’d barely swum a stroke since my last college meet in March 2000. At 23, I figured I was OK with leaving swimming behind. It was just something I used to do. Fast-forward two years.

How to use wearable device data and tracking platforms to improve your swimming About a decade ago, watches and other wearable fitness monitors that track and record your every move began changing the way we swim. Where previously most swimmers had only a pace clock to measure their progress during workouts, suddenly these wearable devices offered a trove of data to pore over after every pool and open water session.

If you swam competitively in high school, college, or even as a kid on a local club team, getting back into the pool after years away can feel super intimidating. All the old insecurities return, from worrying about whether you’re wearing the right suit and goggles to how your body has changed, to even how far your times have slipped as life has intervened.

Home Articles and Videos Why Swimmers Are Among the Worlds Most Attractive Athletes Science explains what makes swimmers so appealing and why it's more than just looks What could be more subjective than determining the attractiveness of a potential mate? It’s almost a silly question to ask because there are so many factors that play into whether one person finds another attractive.