Activity: Swimming

Contributor 1: Sarah Kaminski

Contributor 2:

1. Benefits to the Physical Dimension 

Swimming works your whole body, improving cardiovascular conditioning, muscle strength, endurance, posture, and flexibility all at the same time. Your cardiovascular system in particular benefits because swimming improves your body’s use of oxygen without overworking your heart.^[1]

2. Benefits to the Interpersonal Dimension

Interpersonal wellness is definitely a benefit of swimming.  I know this from personal experience.  I was on a competitive swim team for nearly 12 years.  There would be days I would be miserable and totally stressed.  Jumping in the water and swimming laps with my best friends would make everything better.  Swimming created the best relationships of my life!

3. Benefits to the Intellectual Dimension

 Work out^[2]:

This may seem like a basic chart with some words and numbers, but it is a complex swimming workout.  Competitive swimmers will do sets very similar to this one.  Doing a workout like this not only takes a lot of physical strength, but a lot of mental strength.  Having to keep swimming while continually counting laps, and thinking about what is next, definitely benefits the intellectual dimension of wellness.

4. Benefits to the Emotional Dimension

Exercise gives you the satisfaction that you can push your body to its limit!  Swimming is a tough workout, that can make even the toughest football or basketball player cringe with pain.  The fact that swimming pushes you to the edge and leaves you wanting more qualifies it as a benefiting factor to emotional wellness.

5. Benefits to the Spiritual Dimension

When you are in the pool, the lake, the ocean, it's just you, so you think.  You feel your hands slicing through the water, over, and over, and over again.  Some people find swimming repetitive or boring.  I believe that swimming gives you time to think. Time to yourself, in the pool, makes you think there's something greater than yourself.  It is as if there is a driving force pushing you down the pool.

6. Benefits to the Environmental Dimension

When you are in a man-made concrete cube filled with water, you don't really think about the environment all that much.  In the summer though, you can really feel the environment surrounding you by swimming in a lake, river, or ocean.  When swimming in open water, you can hear the earth.  You hear the splashing of waves, you see fish, you feel the sun, you become a part of nature.