Is swimming the best training?

I remember when I was a lot younger than I am now that I watched some sort of special about Mr. Rogers and how he stays fit by going swimming often.

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This might be USA-centric, but Mr. Rogers was a very influential figure in a kid's life back in 'my day' even though he was on public access television and as far as I know, never really chased a life filled with fame and fortune.

I recall at that time thinking that swimming doesn't really feel like exercise but that was youthful me talking and youthful me used to go to the public pool and just swim and play silly games for hours and hours because that is what kids did back then.

These days, whenever I can I go to a pool and swim laps specifically for the purpose of getting exercise.

The thing I like about swimming is that it doesn't get me all heated up like almost any other sport that I engage in, and this is for obvious reasons. I heat up easy, so being submerged in what is normally cool water is a great way to offset this. The flip side of things is that I never really feel like this is a true workout.

I have no idea if the output of my watch is accurate as far as caloric burn is concerned, I presume it isn't. But my watch cannot detect heart rate when submerged in water, so this output is likely simply determined by my speed and then pulls data from a table based on your age and how fast you are moving. This data would be very easy to manipulate because the GPS also doesn't work while submerged and therefore you have to input the length of the pool you are in manually. If you are in a public lap pool this is very easy to determine because almost all pools like this are either 25 or 50 meters in length.

If not, and you are around 6 feet tall, just walk along the side of the pool and each normal step you take is about 1 meter. Since your watch isn't going to give you truly accurate information anyway, this is probably good enough.

These stats are fun to look at and all, but when I am in the pool I don't really try to set any speed records and instead just focus on the fluid nature of my stroke and of course remember to breathe a lot.

I say that I feel like swimming might be the perfect training, especially if you are older, because it works a lot of your body. Sure the running or perhaps even cycling that I do gets my heart pumping faster, but that only works my legs. When I swim, I am using all of my body and perhaps even my core. I haven't looked into it enough to know.

What I do know is that after a session in the pool I feel as though I have done an upper body workout, especially in my shoulders. Since I am an ex bodybuilder that is transitioning to cardio for the past 18 months or so, I do notice when I get a "pump" of my muscles because it looks like I am flexing when I am not. I do like what remains of my muscle mass so this is just an added benefit.

Another benefit is that I rarely feel any sort of joint pain or muscle strain after swimming, but a lot of this is probably because I take it very easy when I am doing this.

I have at times had especially foot and knee pain after running or cycling but I don't think I have ever had any sort of issue after swimming. I also quite like this new, probably completely made up stat called SWOLF

A lower number is better in SWOLF just like in golf, and I can only presume those high bits are the ones where I reached the wall and turned around. I don't do a flip turn, I am not that serious about it and am doing breaststroke for the most part anyway.

I would like to transition to do a lot more swimming but where I live pool access is very expensive. I get these free vouchers every now and then but am contemplating looking at the day passes that are cheaper if you go during the time when most people are working. I will have to be very careful to make sure that it doesn't coincide with some sort of youth swim training session though. I can't think of anything that demotivates me from participating in some sort of activity more than a bunch of kids running around and screaming which is exactly what I would have done if I was still their age.