The American Swimming Coaches Association sent all of their coaches an email recently in an effort to try to fill some vacancies for Swim Outlet’s Fitter and Fast Tour. This project is top-notch and travels across the country to provide the highest quality clinics of swim instruction to anyone interested. It’s a huge benefit for experienced swimmers and beginners, and while it focuses on youth, coaches and whole community benefit from its presence.
This could be for anyone: it could be for you, your children, your parents, or your friends! It could be a child swim meet, it could be a swim-a-thon for a good cause, or maybe it’s a triathlon. What do these events mean? Besides being great athletic trials, these events mean there will be lots of people around! This could completely throw people off. In this video, we tell you how to get past worrying about swimming in front of large crowds.
There are many ways to learn how to swim. Everyone has a different school of thought. But what are the real pros and cons of each one? Fear is a big issue concerning water and it stops people from learning how to swim all the time which is incredibly dangerous. Drowning is a huge cause of death around the world. We’re here to try to educate you on what is the best way on learning how to swim. Watch this video to learn more about it from the master!
Recently, I received an email from change.org. I’m subscribed by choice and I typically read the petition and sign it if I believe in it. Sometimes I even share it on social media if I think it’s a worthy cause. However, sometime last week I got one that really resonated with me more than others. The email was titled “My son drowned on a cruise” and the petition was titled “Make it Mandatory for Cruise Lines to Employ Lifeguards.”
“October 13, 2013 remains one of the darkest days of my life. My family of five was enjoying the last day of our Carnival cruise in the Caribbean when tragedy struck in a matter of minutes: my six-year-old son Qwentyn drowned in a pool.
Although it breaks my heart, I have come to terms with the fact that I got distracted and let this happen. Accidents happen, and that’s why I couldn’t believe that most cruise lines do not employ lifeguards on ships. With all the activities occurring on a ship deck at any given time, I believe that properly trained lifeguards — acting as an extra set of eyes and ears — will help to save more kids’ lives.
It has taken me some time to pull myself together to start this petition, but I felt that I had to do it so that other families don’t have to go through what my family and I have during the last year. I’m here to ask Carnival Corporation and the cruise line industry to employ lifeguards to provide greater passenger safety onboard ships.
Research shows that nearly two million passengers under 18 board cruises each year. Many cruise travelers can probably relate to the distracting nature of the deck — music, people, water activity, entertainment and noise are all constant. Despite this, only Disney puts lifeguards on its ships, a decision made shortly after our son’s passing. The cruise industry brought $42 billion in economic activity to the U.S. in 2012, so why can’t it require that companies hire lifeguards to ensure greater safety?
Make no mistake, parental supervision should always be a priority, but it’s clear to me and many others that the presence of lifeguards can only help to protect lives. Please sign our petition so we can make this important change sooner than later. Thanks for your support!”
My reaction was not just sympathetic to the family that lost a child. Despite being a person that feels responsible for nearly everything that happens to me, there is something wrong with this picture. As much as we can blame the father, and he obviously blames himself, there has to be some accountability. As an experienced pool manager, I have used the old put a sign up to remove our liability trick, but my staff was still trained to respond to emergencies and make sure no one loses their life on our deck or in our water.
The cruise lines are not going to be there to respond to the emergencies if they have pools and no lifeguards. That is something only private facilities can get away with, and believe me, I know. I also was the Director of an Aquatics Facility that was privately owned and we did not require a lifeguard on duty. Still, we had certified lifeguards teaching swim lessons and managing the deck, because safety matters. This way, we saved money because lifeguards are a black hole for costs, but still never lost anyone.
I have been on a cruise ship and swam in their pools, and I would be willing to pay an extra dollar in order to pay for a single lifeguard because if every cruise ship had one lifeguard per pool area, that child would not have died. Many individuals would still be alive. I hate it when people lose their lives when it is completely preventable. A major company being cheap and wanting to maximize profits is completely preventable.
So, I’ll go even farther with this petition and say that cruise lines can raise the price of cruises to compensate for the wages given to putting one lifeguard on duty per pool area. It’s such a sad story, and it never had to happen. While we continue to teach parents and children about water safety, let’s encourage the other side to have professionals keep us safe. Thank you for reading and please sign the petition.
This is a guest post from our good friend, Nerdy Neanderthal, a nerdy fitness dude (see pic below). Expect more posts from him ranging from workouts to beer discussions to nerd surges!
Sick tattoo!!
Pros:
Cons:
This product barely does what it is supposed to do. I hopped in the pool and clipped the nano to my suit. Swam one lap, that was great, but it was all downhill from there. Buttons stuck, hollow sound and most of my workout with less than two headphones in my ears.
Before even going into my swim, my biggest problem with this product is its functionality: I CAN’T SKIP SONGS! Customer service told me that the buttons can get stuck in the water-proofing process. Solution, put the iPod between a desk and a heavy book and press down in circular pattern. I did all this and all I got was a better understanding of the word, “futility.” This is a huge issue for me because I listen to 40 minute podcasts when I do cardio. So if you listen to quick songs and make a good playlist ahead of time, this won’t be a big issue.
Now, to get to my actual swim. Off the first flipturn of my swim, I push with moderate force and out pops the right earbud. Finish the lap, readjust. Third wall less push but same result. Put a cap on over my ears and now when the headphones come out they hang half in your ear; both physically annoying and psychologically. I get the hang of pushing weakly off the wall and using my biceps during streamline to squeeze the headphones back into place. Even when I did hit a rhythm the sound is hollow and far away below water.
Like the night before a hangover, this product seems like a good idea at the time. It’s cheap, barely more expensive than the base Nano, came with free waterproof headphones, and dropped off by USPS free of charge. (I used Amazon) The computer side of the input is a breeze for anyone familiar with Apple products. The size is a great plus, exact same diminutive size as the regular Nano; easily fits in any pocket. When I got the headphones to stay in, the right track on the Nano, with the correct volume it did create that “in the zone” feeling I was looking to obtain.
My thoughts on this MP3 player are hugely mixed. My Nano couldn’t skip tracks, creating this feeling of uselessness in the device. The headphones that came with this product were garbage, both in sound and staying in during rigorous exercise. But even with these massive negatives, it is still a waterproof Apple iPod for barely more money than its base partner. Like the proverbial moth to the flame, I will come back to this device once I can get it working properly. I can not damn this product, but I do wish to severely hedge your expectations.
Your Nerdy Neanderthal gives the WaterFi iPod Nano a 4/10.
This post was inspired by an old swimming friend that has more recently gotten involved in lifting weights and trying to transform his body. He is an extremely experienced and skilled swimmer so he has a lot of tools at his disposal. He does not enjoy running or biking as a means to burn calories but he is interested in cutting for the summer.
Cutting is a term used in the fitness industry, primarily among physique based competitions, that refers to a stage after bulking where you lower your caloric intake and increase your caloric deficits in order to lose fat. Through this process of lowering body fat percentage, the muscles that a person developed and strengthened during their bulking phase will be more defined, visible and prominent. It has a certain aesthetic effect.
Not exactly your typical lap swimmer (it’s Alana)
Mr. M (we will keep his identity a mystery) asked me if swimming was a suitable substitute for cutting and the answer is yes. Anything that helps you achieve your caloric deficit amongst a cutting phase, with proper diet and rest, is a proper form or substitute for the classic “cardio machines.” Most professionals have ellipticals, treadmills, steppers or even bikes in their home gyms. There are a few reasons why swimming does not receive attention on the same level. Those reasons are primarily seen as a disadvantage and therefore complicate the process. However, there are certain advantages as well if you are cutting for your own reasons and not trying to be like everyone else. Here are the reasons why people do not use swimming to lose fat:
1. Most people do not know how to swim. That’s true, believe it or not. Beyond that, many people that do know how to swim don’t know how to swim properly. The number of people that can swim the four competitive strokes and various other safety strokes properly is extremely small. Many bodybuilders are among this population and are not interested in learning how to swim. However, for Mr. M, this is not a concern and with strokes such as backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle, and butterfly it is very easy to burn more calories than on a machine that plugs into the wall.
2. It is much harder to calculate burned calories while swimming. Machines that plug into walls have abilities to calculate these numbers, therefore making it extremely convenient for someone tracking these figures so strictly to hit their marks properly. This is not the case while swimming, as every stroke will burn a different amount of calories. Pacing yourself will also affect this greatly. Swimming a 100-yard freestyle on 55 seconds and following with a second 100 yard freestyle on 1 minutes and 15 seconds will result in different calculations that need to be made. If you are not extremely strict on your figures, then this is not an issue as you can estimate. You can also buy some new devices in the market that are waterproof and track your calories that are burned. Fit will be doing a post soon about these devices so keep an eye out for that.
3. It is generally more difficult to find a body of water, especially year round, that is safe. You can run and bike on land. You can run indoors in the winter no matter where you live. Finding a safe swimming spot is harder as it is a much more dangerous activity due to the medium of the water. In developing countries swimming is a luxury and something that the majority of the population does not know how to do. Overall, it is simply not as safe.
Despite these factors, I highly recommended Mr. M to swim in order to cut to achieve his goals. The best way is to use all the strokes that you know and incorporate them into a HIIT (high intensity interval training) workout. Switch up your strokes and change your pace consistently to challenge your body to work harder and burn more calories. Swimming for an hour at the same pace does not do much unless you somehow can maintain your full speed, or something close, for that whole time. I love to do 100 and 200 IMs (individual medley- butterfly, breaststroke, backstroke, freestyle) with the 100s being all out and the 200s being at a steady pace. I will do 5-10 of each depending on how I feel with minimal rest in between. It makes me feel good, keep my skills fresh and avoids putting extra impact on my heavy flat feet.
If you are interested in specific questions related to swimming or cutting calories please leave a comment below. And look forward to more entries in the Best Way to Cut Calories series. Use this to stay hungry and fit!
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BONUS KITTY PIC
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