We all have that favorite. That one Workout that just does it for us. You know the one. The one that makes you SUPER excited in the morning when you’re heading to the gym.

I rediscovered mine today, but I wasn’t at the gym.

What is this magical workout? What is it that I love so much?

Swimming.

Seriously I love swimming. Especially with how sore my muscles have been recently, it felt so good to swim. My joints didn’t hurt, my muscles weren’t burning, but damn it felt good.

It’s my favorite workout.

Why is it so great? Aren’t your muscles supposed to burn? Yes, but not while swimming.

An easy swim can burn 500 calories per hour, but if you swim vigourously it can burn up to 700 calories. While you’re in the water gravity doesn’t matter. (Okay, gravity always matters, but you know what I mean.)  When you’re in water the pressure of gravity is virtually removed, meaning that your joints and muscles get a break from always being used. What else is awesome is that it’s a real workout. I’m not talking the gentle kicks back and forth. I’m talking you have on the swim cap, goggles, suit and powering through.

You’ve watched the olympic swimming right?

Okay, maybe not olympic swimming. I mean I’m no Katie Ledecky. But you get the idea.

What make swimming so good? Unlike running, where you use your legs, swimming uses just about every muscle in your body as well as your lungs. Whhattt your lungs?

Yes. Your lungs.

You see when you’re doing dry land workouts you can breath all willy nilly. Swimming? Nope. Breathing is timed, more or less. When I swam (Ohhhh yeah I was a swimmer in high school for a few years.) the “rule” was that you breathed every 4-6 strokes. At first it feels like your lungs are on fire. But it gets easier.

When doing a swimming workout don’t just make it a long drawn-out process of kick and stroke. Nah, you have to do it the same way as dry land. You have to add in rests, intervals, think of HIIT but in water. Looking up different drills helps to.

Drills? What the hell are those?

Let me give you a straight definition of a swimming drill. A controlled form of stroke designed to draw attention to a particular aspect of that stroke: Catch-Up , Drag, Salute, Elbows High, Zip-up, Doggy Paddle, Duck, and many more.

So swimming HIIT. That’s nice.

That’s what my gym is missing. A pool. I wish my gym had a pool in it.