Swimmer at the Basin
Swimming makes your blood vessels more elastic
Swimmer at the Basin
Swimming makes your blood vessels more elastic
“When you’re swimming vigorously, you are using lots of different muscle groups and,
importantly, you are working against the weight of the water,” explains Michael.
Research suggests that even a 20-minute swim exercise can boost brain function.
One of the health benefits that testifies to the holistic power of swimming is
what it does to our arteries.
As blood vessels, our arteries are crucial. Heart disease, after all, is caused by artery blockage –
it’s not a disease of the heart itself.
Arteries not only carry blood from one part of the body to another,
they also buffer the pulsations of that movement,
expanding and recoiling as they do this.
Playing this key role takes its toll and, over time, the arteries get stiff
and can cause damage to the brain and the kidneys.
An experiment carried out by Prof Hiro Tanaka from the University of Texas,
Austin showed that just three months of a swimming exercise programme, was highly effective
in reducing artery stiffness, and reducing the stress transmitted into other organs.
Source: BBC/Dr Michael Mosley
Swimmer at the Basin
History of Swimming
What is Swimming?
Swimming at the Olympics is both an individual and team sport,
where competitors propel their bodies through water, in either an outdoor
or indoor swimming pool, using one of the following strokes:
Freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, or butterfly.
It is not to be confused with Marathon (open water) swimming,
or artistic swimming at the Games, which are considered separate disciplines.
Source: Olympic History
