February 1st, 2011 
admin The swimming workout is a great form of exercise, it provides a great workout for your entire body and it’s also easy on your joints.
As an aerobic workout, swimming is a good form of cardio. Cardio has a reputation for helping your body to burn fat without bulking up in muscle and is excellent for improving heart health.
The following swim workout will involve different strokes in order to give the best all round workout. You will work numerous different muscles and it will also mix up the workout somewhat. There will be three different strokes in this workout, but you can feel free to do you favourite one. Just don’t focus on a single stroke for too long otherwise you won’t be getting the most out of it.
As with other workouts, before you begin be sure to warm up your muscles as a means of preventing injury while you exercise. To do this just swim for 2 minutes with each of these strokes at a casual speed, so swim for 6 minutes in all, before beginning.
The first stroke is the butterfly. Alternate between 20 really fast butterfly strokes then follow this with 10 at a more casual pace. Then move onto the next kind of stroke, freestyle.
This will be the second style that you do. Freestyle for 30 quick strokes at your fastest speed before doing 10 more relaxed freestyle strokes. The breaststroke is the third stroke.
Of all the strokes in this swimming workout, this one will demand the most of you physically. Breaststroke for 20 quick strokes at your quickest speed before doing 10 more at a relaxed pace.
Once you have completed all of these strokes one after the other you have completed a single cycle, the target is to complete 8. I recommend that you start with only doing four cycles and build your way up to eight cycles. Increase your swimming workout by 1 cycle every after every workout until you can do the full eight cycles.
When you reach this point of the swimming workout, you can add to the workout intensity by doing more fast strokes during each stroke set. Ideally, you want to go all out for twenty seconds and then slow down for ten seconds and then repeat. If you follow this guideline, the eight cycles should only take four minutes.
This workout is based upon the 20 seconds on and 10 seconds off method which is known as the Tabata Protocol. It takes less time and is much more effective than the conventional slow and steady approach of doing aerobic exercises (running, biking, swimming workout).
You will eventually get to the stage in which you can complete all 8 cycles without much hassle, when you can do this add more cycles to your routine.. You don’t need to do more than five cycles. Aim to workout for about 20 minutes and no more.
If this is the only form of workout you are doing, you can do this three times a week. If you are currently taking part in muscle gaining workouts then do the swim workout once a week, possibly twice.
Make sure you are always watching what is ahead of you to avoid bumping into walls. If you're swimming hard and not paying attention, you can easily blow your head to the edge of the pool.
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