Competitive Swimming

In hopefully my last paper, I will be talking about swimming. Until about a year and a half ago, I had been swimming for about eight years. In those eight years I accomplished a lot and also became better at everything athletically. Swimming is all about technique and practice.

When I heard about swimming I just thought about messing around in the pool and going back and forth leisurely. But then I went to my first practice and the rest is history. When I was little, I just remember being so good at it. I never really had to try that hard and I was always the anchor in all of my relays. Swimming was a big social thing for me. I met a lot of other swimmers from other towns and made fast friends.

Swimming is full of technique. Even if you are strong you still might not get across the pool very fast. Your arms need to pull at the right time and your legs need to kick constantly. You need to know when the right time to breathe is and actually work on your breathing. The goal that every swimmer has is to breathe as little as possible. When you take a breath you are slowing your rhythm down and breaking your pattern. When you get to the other side of the pool and you are doing more than a twenty-five you need to make sure your flip turn is as quick and powerful as possible. Most people think that swimming is such an easy sport but, it is not.

When you are swimming you are using all of your muscles, you are kicking and pulling. It is also a proven fact that swimming burns more calories than running or biking. When you swim hard for an hour you burn about 780 calories but for running it is about 550. You get a full body workout ,and you aren’t doing as much damage to your knees ankles or other parts of your body that is more prone to injury from running.

I feel like I really liked swimming because not a lot of people in Denison were very good at it and I was. I was known for being the little kid that other teams were scared of. I went so far that I won state. Swimming really shaped my life and helped me become the athlete that I am today. Without swimming I would not have been as strong or in shape as I am now.

After school, I would go every day to do at least an hour or two of practice with lots of tools that would hopefully advance me. I would have to say using a parachute in the water is probably the worst anyone could ever swim with. It makes you have to pull and kick so much harder just to get across the pool.

In conclusion, I would have to say my swimming past was the most important part of my life. It helped me through a lot of my issues and just helped me with my physical training. I would recommend swimming to anyone that wants a hard workout without damaging joints or any other vidal parts that running or biking do to your body. It is just a great sport and I actually sometimes miss it. I miss having a commitment to a sport like that. But, it is a fantastic sport and I would not change my childhood sport for anything. 

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