Swimming/ cardio

[Fruitbat]

One poster who has been successful said “choose a sport you enjoy”. Well, I love swimming. So am gonna get into that. A few questions, these are a bit disparate so bear with me:

- I do weights, would I put swimming under the cardio section rather than replace weights with swimming?

- Swimmers physiques are awesome. Is this just the product of being an athelete or does swimming itself for the average gym goer have a great impact on physique in itself? I hate running with a passion and find all the runners I know are skinny.

3rd question is off piste.

A lot is said about “you don’t neee cardio to lose weight” but I find restricting diet that much is hard - id far rather burn 500 Cals and eat a decent meal than do no cardio and then eat a few wisps of lettuce.

could some fairly taxing swim sessions on my cardio days be a good route to “making room” for meals?

I ask as I know several guys my age who drink regularly and never are strict with diet and are in good shape and they both said they do tons of running and sport. Personally I’ve tried to manage the diet but always end up overeating.

this is a jumble of a post but thoughts welcome.
Cheers

 

[IKO69]

Wladimir Klitschko, the boxer and one of my heroes, substituted swimming for running as it was less taxing on his joints.

You absolutely can take up swimming as your primary form of cardio.

As far as diet - just don't eat **** (junk food) and you'll be fine.

 

[EyeBRollin]

Swimming is both cardio and resistance. It is hella taxing. Enjoy swimming!

As for diet, eat as much as your heart desires. Diet is more about food choices than food quantity. Remove added fat (butter and oils), added sugar and do not drink calories. The pounds will fly off.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

Swimming is fine but in reality all you need to do is walk consistently.

 

[AmsterdamAssassin]

Swimming is fine but in reality all you need to do is walk consistently.

I try to go swimming at least once a week, but I take my cat for a walk or bicycle ride every day.

 

[Fruitbat]

I try to go swimming at least once a week, but I take my cat for a walk or bicycle ride every day.

cat? This isn’t afemale singles over 50s forum !
HTF do you walk a cat?!!

 

[AmsterdamAssassin]

HTF do you walk a cat?!!

Like this, for example.

 

[CAPSLOCK BANDIT]

Swimming was my favorite form of cardio until I basically mastered it, I'm definitely not an Olympian or anything like this but I just found myself going faster for longer than anybody around me and I felt my body had adapted to it, it would take me a long time to get tired.

Then I started using the sled or tank, this ****er has me gassed in probably 45 seconds, I would have to swim probably 20 minutes straight to be that tired.

If your talking managing calories instead of cardio, I'd do swimming, if you don't swim a lot then sure but if your working hard in my opinion your going to plateau at whatever you chose to do for cardio eventually, just need to be switching it up, keeping it fresh for me anyways.