So even though I evaluated what I did the other day with the swimming the way that I did, I still had my doubts and wanted to make sure that everything was in line and that the stats weren't skewed by a bad reading or the device doing something wonky.
So we found ourselves in the same pool, same gear, even the same swimsuit for another day of going back and forth doing the same stroke which in my case was breaststroke.
Now if you look at this and compare it to what I did the other day, it is almost exactly the same. Keeping in mind that I wasn't trying to do anything the same other than the amount of time that I spent doing it and this is actually really good results. 30 minutes was not some arbitrary number, that is the length of time that each lane booking lasts for at this swim club. I was in the pool for around 31 minutes each time and I wouldn't say that I was particularly motivated either day, I was just moving around and getting some work in while not leisurely moving, but I also wan't treating it like a race. I just never stopped but never struggled for air nor did I feel at any point like I was getting remotely close to hurting myself.
the pace was about 3.5 minutes for both and this is pretty funny because I honestly was NEVER trying to maintain a certain pace, this is just the pace that I go when I am having a chill time in the pool doing laps.
In both situations I burned over 500 calories and this is just remarkable to me since I previously was burning about this much from the runs that I was doing and honestly, I really didn't like doing those.
When I finish swimming I do not feel exhausted immediately the way I do when I go running, but the fatigue really does kick in later such as when I do finally sit down on the sofa or bed to watch a film at the end of the day.
I'm quite happy with this and am going to continue doing it since lately I have been having some slight problems with my knee from running and needed a break from that anyway.
Is swimming the ticket to better health and body maintenance? Maybe! I don't really know because I am quite new to this. But if it does do the job I can honestly say I would much rather do this than run for an hour in the sun, especially in summertime.
I will continue to monitor these as I already agreed to sign up for a month membership at this pool. it is expensive but I am very interested in two things here. One is if the caloric burn starts to go down over time as I repeat this exercise over and over and also if I end up accidentally getting faster. I have no intention of trying to go faster, I am just going to get in there and continue to do what I consider to be a moderate or even easy pace for 30 minutes.