Swimming: Not As Easy As I Remember From Childhood
When I was young, I swam almost daily during the summers. My grandma’s condo had a pool that was almost 5-feet deep in the shallow end and 10 feet in the deep end. The depth made the water freezing on all but the most sweltering of days. But whether because of the cold or just luck, the pool was almost always empty and my brothers and I owned that pool.
I swam like a fish. We perfected dives off the diving board, dove for coins, swam the length of the pool underwater, scored each other on underwater hand stands, and pretended to be the whale in Free Willy. (Maybe that last one was just me.) We were strictly timed on days we had baseball or softball games; I think we were only allowed in for a few minutes so as not to wear ourselves out. And for good reason. Swimming is exhausting.
I’ve been doing some swimming at the gym and, boy, is it not as easy as I remember it to be. Treading water gets me out of breath more quickly than I thought it would. And lap swimming? Holy toledo. I swam for about 30 minutes one day, taking breaks here and there to remain afloat. And it’s so deceiving. It feels hard while you’re swimming, yes. But your body is cool. You can’t tell how much you’re sweating. So by the time I went to haul myself out of the side of the pool, I was wishing I’d swam over to the steps. My arms could barely support my weight, and I swear I was all jiggly when I walked across the pool deck. It was whole-body fatigue like nothing else.
I am decades older than I was back in my pool days. And I am still working on bouncing back from pregnancy. But damn if swimming isn’t hard work. Those Olympians aren’t joking around.
What activities do you find to be way tougher as an adult? Jump rope, anyone? —Erin
Comments
Biking. As a kid, I rode everywhere. That bike was freedom, and I put thousands of miles on it. There was never anywhere too far to be able to ride to, just too far for my parents to let me go.
Recently, I finally got a bike again. I try to ride it everywhere, but OMG hills! Granted, the town I live in now is a lot hillier than the town I grew up in, but I don’t ever remember struggling to get up hills as a kid. I don’t remember my thighs burning like this.
Come to think about it, swimming is a little deceiving. You are breathing much harder yet you cannot feel your sweat going down your entire face. Swimming is the only activity that makes me feel very hungry after.
A tough activity to get back to was running. It took a few weeks to get used to but I got back in the groove. So will you and swimming!
Try swimming down to the bottom of the pool. Those hips sure do float!!
I had a hard time getting back on a bike as well. I kept on falling off on the mount up and dismount.
Hills?!? I love hills on a bicycle. Why, because there is usually a downhill after the uphill. Rolling hills are the best. If you can work it right you can go coast through the toughest part of hill and sprint to the top and enjoy the speed down the other side.
Swimming is definitely a tougher work out but biking is a close second for working hard. The beauty of the bike is that you can stop and take a break if you want to — try that when swimming laps!