Joy in the Water

After you’re born, movement is progress. You spend years improving your competence in mobility. I think that’s a secret beneath the joy of exercise. Exercise is movement. It makes you feel good because, deep down, it stimulates the joy of movement that you discovered when you were little and learning to be active in the world.

That’s true of hiking, running, swimming, and biking. My sport is swimming.

Swimming might seem weird to some people – especially pool swimming. They think that the scenery never changes. They see swimming as just going back and forth and back and forth.

But that point of view overlooks some things. Again, remember the downright joy of movement.

And often the scenery does change. As I swim, I spend a lot of time looking at other people in the pool. They are my scenery. I admire good swimmers. I critique strokes, something that I’m good at. Sometime I look at subtle things, like the position of someone’s head as they swim. Sometimes there’s an obvious need for improvement, like when people swim almost vertically.

As I swim, I admire fit swimmers – particularly the women.

I check out other people’s swimming equipment. Personally, I wear goggles and a swim suit, and I use a kickboard for part of my workout. But some people buy all sorts of swimming gear. Fins are common. It’s funny to see swimmers with big-ol’ fins that they do not need because they do not move their feet. Some people use snorkels. (Better for a reef in Hawaii.) Varieties of hand wear are not uncommon. They create more resistance for the arms, building muscle faster – but too much resistance can injure you!

Sadly, I used to see and resent the older folks who would amble up and down the lanes, talking with this or that friend. I thought that they were wasting valuable lane space. But I decided that any exercise is good exercise; and even though they don’t get much exercise (they never seem to tire), I can’t say that they get no exercise. And these are old guys who fought in wars and raised children and held down jobs until they retired. If they want to stroll through the water in their years of rest, good.

The greatest joy that I get from swimming is the sense that I do it well. My parents put me on a swim team when I was seven. I swam competitively until I was 18. I was on a masters’ team in Pasadena years ago, and the coach gave me good tips.

So I know what I’m doing in the water.

And after a two-year cycle, I’m strong. I swim 2,700 yards in a workout. (That’s the length of 27 football fields.) Other people swim farther, but that’s still a decent distance. And 850 yards of that is butterfly.

When I finish a workout, I feel like I’ve accomplished something that a lot of guys my age couldn’t do, or wouldn’t do. That’s pride, that’s vanity, but it’s also a source of self-confidence.

I’m vain enough that I like it when people compliment my swimming. My friend Bob is somewhere upward of 74. He’s in great shape. We swim at the same pool. He compliments my butterfly.

And sometimes I’ll greet the young lifeguard before jumping in the pool (they change from day to day). She might reply with obvious bored indifference. After all, I’m 55. But sometimes – sometimes – after I’ve worked out in front of her, she’ll be friendlier. I’m not immune to indirect complements.

Swimming does me good. I might be stressed; a workout soothes me. I might be tired; swimming energies me. I might have a problem; laps sometime bring a solution.

Lately, I’ve competed at masters’ meets. The difference between me at a swim meet at 17 and me at a swim meet at 55 is this: when I was 17, I worried about my races. But now, races are 99.98% pure fun. Sure, I want to do well. But I have perspective now.

And I’m learning, or re-learning. I’m learning when to push and when to pace myself. And when I go out too fast, I learn to gut it out, stroke by stroke, until I touch the wall at the end of the race.

And I’m making friends at the swim meets.

We older Americans usually don’t get much exercise. And sometimes there seems to be no time to work out. But if you do, it rewards you.

It doesn’t have to be swimming. It can be hiking, it can be running, it can be a good walk around your neighborhood. It can be dancing.

My best advice is twofold.

First, pace yourself. When I started, I went short distances. I worked up to my present distance over two years. It’s easier to go from – say – one-thousand yards to two-thousand yards, than it is to go from zero yards to one-thousand yards. You have to understand that, and you have to pace yourself.

That’s true because a lot of short, easy workouts over a long period are better than a long, hard workout that exhausts you so much that you don’t do it again. So be patient with yourself. And be realistic about what you can do.

Second, find a sport that you like. As I said, I like to swim, and I’ve been good at it for a long time. But some people like to lift weights. Others like to hike. I know lawyers who are fanatics about racquetball. Golf is popular. Or biking. Or aerobic classes. When my brother Peter exercises, he runs on a treadmill. My brother Erik learned soccer when he was young, and he enjoys playing it to this day.

Find your sport. You won’t necessarily like what your friends like, but if you find your sport, you’ll keep at it.