A person who could afford any gym, any trainer, or any state-of-the-art recovery regimen would choose a swimming pool in a way that is almost subtly radical. Not a Peloton. Not a boot camp on a rooftop. a pool. The 76-year-old Meryl Streep swims a mile every day.
According to reports, Sir Ben Kingsley, who is 82 years old and still employed, does the same every day. Season after season, Victoria Beckham who isn’t exactly known for her low-key fitness choices returns to the water. The pattern eventually ceases to seem coincidental.
For years, celebrity personal trainers have been discussing this topic. The pitch is simple: swimming is effective. It targets the joints that are worn down by weightlifting. It affects the heart, lungs, muscles possibly most unexpectedly the brain. Swimming is “an often-overlooked exercise that is fantastic for your health”, according to ClassPass trainer Shari Castelli. That’s not a wellness brand speaking; that’s a trainer. There’s a distinction.
The ability to be both demanding and forgiving at the same time is what makes swimming for fitness interesting not just press-release interesting. Because water can support up to 90% of an individual’s body weight, joints experience much less strain than they would on a treadmill or squat rack.
Regular swimming has been shown to significantly reduce joint stiffness and pain in individuals with osteoarthritis. That’s a big deal, especially for senior citizens. That’s the difference between quietly giving up and continuing to be active.
Streep didn’t use any drama when discussing this. She explained in an interview with “HELLO! Magazine” that she swims her daily laps “because I like the feeling and it gets me into my body” rather than as a self-imposed discipline.
She told “The Guardian” that she often comes up with a lot of ideas when she thinks in the pool for 55 laps. Perhaps most people don’t realize how much of the appeal is psychological. The monotonous movement, the submerged world its peculiar seclusion. There’s a reason why actors, writers people with high cognitive demands consistently end up back in the water.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is Adam Peaty, an Olympic gold medalist and one of the most decorated swimsuits in British history. He burns about 7,500 calories during his swimming workouts. His workouts at the gym, which include barbell squats, chin-ups bench presses, are designed to produce the explosive strength that translates into speed in the water.
There is virtually no limit to swimming for fitness, as Peaty’s regimen subtly illustrates. It ranges from Peaty’s almost legendary workouts to Meryl Streep’s contemplative daily mile. Such a range is uncommon.
Most people are unaware of how strong the science is supporting all of this. Regular swimsuits have a 28% lower risk of dying young and a 41% lower risk of dying from heart disease or stroke, according to research published in the “British Journal of Sports Medicine”.
Frequent swimsuits may be up to 20 years younger biologically than their peers who do not swim, according to a different study published in the “International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education”. Those figures are startling. Not in a sponsored content manner, but rather in a way that makes it worthwhile to pay attention to.
“The guy’s got a life and I could tell by the way that he carries himself that it’s important”, remarked Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Ben Kingsley’s co-star, after observing Kingsley’s daily swimming routine on set.
That observation not a study, not a statistic, just someone observing someone else move thru a room might be the most sincere endorsement of swimming for fitness that has ever been given. It seems that the pool settles the score while the body keeps score.
It’s difficult to ignore the fact that celebrities who have made swimming a major part of their fitness regimen aren’t pursuing beauty. Durability is what they are pursuing. Worrying about weight is a waste of the little time women have to feel good, as Streep herself stated years ago. It appears that when people take the long game seriously, they start swimming.