Why Swimming Is the Most Accessible Sport in the UK

The slow lane is already full in a council-run recreation center off the A40 on a soggy Tuesday morning. Beside a woman in her thirties recuperating from a knee surgery, a retired postman is performing a cautious breaststroke. With her goggles fogged up and her arms clutching his forearm like a life raft, a father is instructing his daughter to submerge her face in the water. They’re all not athletes. They are not preparing for anything. Nevertheless, this scene takes place in thousands of pools every morning in a nation renowned for its weather and complex relationship with exercise. That has a subtly remarkable quality.

More than almost any other sport in the UK, swimming appears to have mastered the art of inclusivity. A team is not necessary. An expensive kit is not necessary. You don’t have to be young, athletic, quick, or well-coordinated. You just need two trunks, a few pounds, and a nearby council pool to get in. Compare that to running, which seems free until your knees give out, or cycling, where the entry-level road bike now costs more than a month’s rent in some cities. Swimming seems to give back disproportionately and asks for very little.

This is almost shockingly supported by the numbers. Regular swimmers lower their risk of dying by about 28%, according to a study commissioned by Swim England. That is not a minor advantage. It’s the kind of figure that would be available at every Boots in the nation if it were a pill. According to the same report, water has special qualities that make it suitable for nearly everyone, regardless of age or condition. This kind of statement sounds like marketing until you watch a hydrotherapy session and realize it’s actually true.

Since water is roughly 800 times denser than air, the body must exert more effort to move through it while avoiding the impact that wears down pavement joints. For this reason, a sixty-year-old with arthritis can swim a distance and feel better, but by Thursday, the same person trying to jog would be in physical therapy. The local pool has been doing the work for decades, quietly and unglamorously, while investors in fitness fads are constantly chasing the next big thing cold plunges, electric muscle stimulation, vibrating plates, etc.

The issue of swimming reaches is another. Robert, a swimmer highlighted in the Swim England report, has both Korsakoff’s syndrome and bipolar disorder. He talked about how, prior to learning to swim, he felt stuck and how the pool helped him regain his sense of value. Despite being a brief testimony, it is repeated in various forms all over the nation. People with dementia, people recovering from strokes, pregnant women in their third trimester, kids with ADHD who can’t sit still in a classroom but who suddenly settle once they’re in the water. The pool doesn’t pose inquiries. It merely keeps you upright.

The contrast between this and the gym, that other purported stronghold of accessible fitness, is difficult to ignore. The social geometry is immediately apparent when you walk into any commercial gym: the regulars by the free weights, the cardio crowd glued to screens, and the awkward newcomer hovering close to the rowing machine. Pools are not the same. They have an odd democratic flatness. Everyone is equally vulnerable, equally focused on avoiding drowning, half-undressed, and half-blind without glasses. People are leveled out in a manner that few public areas can now handle.

Beyond fitness, children appear to gain from it as well. There is a reason why swimming is included in the National Curriculum. Students must demonstrate basic water safety and be able to swim 25 meters by the end of primary school. It sounds insignificant. It isn’t. The United Kingdom is an island. With lakes, rivers, harbors, and a coastline that encircles the entire nation, being unable to swim here is more than just a hassle it’s a real risk. Up to nine million adults in England over the age of 14 have never learned to swim, according to the Amateur Swimming Association. That gap is the size of an entire nation and is just waiting to be filled.

It’s important to take note of the decline in participation in recent years. Pools have closed, opening hours have been reduced, and council budgets have been tightened. Regulars feel that this most accessible sport is gradually becoming unaffordable due to its pricing and schedule. The larger picture is unclear, but Swim Local pilots have been started in an effort to buck the trend by concentrating on what local communities genuinely want from their pools. The political will to treat swimming as the public health benefit that it most likely is is still up for debate.

As all of this is happening, a more subdued thought persists. Football, cricket, rugby, and television content are among the sports that Britain spends a lot of time debating. The sport taking place in the lane next to the retired postman is the one that truly affects the greatest number of lives, reaching into primary schools, maternity wards, care facilities, and rehabilitation centers. Investors appear to think that wearable, gamified, and customized fitness is the way of the future. Perhaps it is. There is a compelling argument that the future also resembles the past: a peaceful pool, an early start, and a nation that at last remembers what it already has.

i) https://www.schoolofplay.org.uk/the-importance-of-swimming-education-in-englands-primary-schools/
ii) https://www.sportengland.org/research-and-data/research/popular-activities/swimming
iii) https://www.sta.co.uk/news/2019/05/13/70-percent-of-parents-think-swimming-is-most-important-sport-for-kids/
iv) https://www.swimnow.co.uk/health-and-wellbeing/9-benefits-of-swimming-for-kids/