Swimming is a fantastic all-round way to boost fitness levels. It provides an effective cardiovascular workout, can help to tone the body, and can help to build impressive body strength, while all the time being relatively gentle on your body as being buoyant in the water protects you from impacts that can cause injuries.
Just don’t go too mad straightaway! It takes time to build up to the kind of routine where you’re burning up Units at an impressive rate. Start by warming up and take it easy for a couple of lengths before you try to build up speed. If you plough straight into your first few lengths, you’ll barely last 10 minutes and run the risk of collapsing in the shower with exhaustion, which is never a good look! It’s a good idea to take a few swimming lessons to get you started, especially if you have never been a strong swimmer. Most local leisure centres and gyms will offer these so check out what’s available in your area.

Once you’re ready to go, aim for a routine of about five minutes warming up, followed by a more intense period of continuous lengths, finishing off with another gentle swim lasting five minutes. Complete that routine three times a week and you’ll be putting yourself through a strenuous aerobic workout while producing long, lean muscles.

Vary your strokes
Front crawl is most effective at burning up Units. Changing to the backstroke will help tone your upper body, while the breaststroke is an excellent way to work the inner thighs. You’ll see results pretty quickly as swimming against the water works your body 12 times harder than if you were in the gym. Calories are burnt off at a faster pace. Put it this way, an hour in the pool can use up the same number of calories as a five mile run!

Out to sea
Swimming in the sea offers a much more intense, and also more pleasurable, workout. It’s harder work to stay afloat in the sea and there’s not as much ‘clean’ water to grab as you haul yourself through the water. Safety, however, is vital. If possible, check the beach at low tide to see where any potential holes are so you don’t get accidentally caught out of your depth. To check which way the water is drifting, wade out to waist height and then float facing the beach and staring at a fixed point. See which way you drift and that’s the way the tide is running.

Don’t swim out further than waist height and keep an eye on how long you’ve been swimming against the tide. Don’t wait until you’re out of steam – you’ll need plenty of energy to make it back to shore. To find out your closest Blue Flag beach, which offer the cleanest water and beach, check the An Taisce website .
Do you swim? Let's hear about your routine in the Unislim Forum!

Weight loss is given as one of the main reasons why people exercise. But what type of exercise is most effective if you have a couple of pounds or a stone or more to lose, and how long should you work out for? You can exercise all you like, but if you consume too many Units you will not win the battle.

Equally, diet alone will not work in the long term. Research shows that people who lose weight by dieting alone are significantly at risk of putting most of it back on within a year. You need to exercise to activate your muscles as much as possible. This will burn fat and reduce weight. To do this, we need to focus on intensity, duration and type of exercise.

INTENSITY
For simplicity, think of your exertions on a 1-10 scale of intensity: 1 is totally at rest; 10 is completely exhausted. At 6 you are exercising mildly; at 7 you are becoming hot and perspiring; at 8 you are working hard but can still talk; and 9 is close to exhaustion and talking is not easy.

If you are just starting an exercise programme, you need to stay at about 6 or 7 on the scale. This is good news because you don’t need to reach the levels of intensity that make you feel significantly uncomfortable at the early stages of your fitness programme.

If however you are out of condition, as a result of illness, injury or obesity, this type of intensity could easily become quite a challenge after about 15-20 minutes. You may need to start at a lower intensity doing an exercise such as walking for a few weeks and then begin to raise the level.

DURATION
Is it enough to exercise for 10-15 minutes? And is intense exercise that is done in short bursts of 2-3 minutes worthwhile? The answer to these questions is that any exercise will raise your metabolism and you will start to burn calories. If you follow the intensity rules – working out at 6-7 on the scale if you are just beginning exercise, pushing yourself harder if you are fitter – you will be able to continue for 10-15 minutes, and if you can manage 30 minutes or more, then even better.
You should aim to work out for at least 20-30 minutes three to four times a week.

Doing short bursts of activity, such as 2-3 minutes with a rest in between, over a period of 20 minutes, is known as interval training. This is a phenomenally good form of training to increase the strength and fitness of your cardio system. The intensity is higher when active, perhaps 8-9/10 (maybe running), and lower when resting, say 5/10 (steady walk). You will feel tired more quickly, so if you are starting from a low fitness base, wait until week 3 or 4 to do this.

TYPE OF EXERCISE
Finally, the type of activity that you do is important. If you want to lose weight you should do an exercise that will use as many muscle fibres as possible during the movement. Swimming is an excellent activity and rowing is particularly good at burning calories because its physical demands are so broad and challenging. Unfortunately, most people don’t like going on the rowing machine for more than a few minutes or can’t keep it up for long before becoming exhausted. This, therefore, may not be a wise choice.

You need to choose an exercise that you can sustain enjoyably for the duration, whether that is running, power-walking or working out in the gym, and then intersperse it with short periods doing something more difficult such as sprinting, or if you are in the gym, working out on the rower. And if an activity such as gardening causes you to work out at an intensity of 7, it may be that this is enough for you.

KEEP PUSHING YOURSELF
If you are reaching the desired targets, you are helping yourself enormously. Just don’t fall into the group of people who become comfortable doing activities that were once enough but that you have outgrown. Constantly monitor yourself and ask yourself: “Am I truly testing myself?” If the answer is “yes” and you have control over your diet, you will almost certainly lose weight!

What type of exercise do you do? Tell us all about your fitness routine in the Unislim Forum!

Beginning an exercise program can be very overwhelming and painful if you aren’t careful. Warming your body up and stretching prior to exercise is very important for your health and will allow you to see better results, as well as to enjoy the workout more. Warming up and stretching raise your body and muscle temperatures, along with preparing your cardiovascular, respiratory, and nervous systems for the demands of exercise by slowly increasing the blood circulation.

Warming up will allow all of your connective tissues that haven’t been stretched recently to handle the stress put on during exercise, limiting your chances for injury. Connective tissue is similar to hard plastic; if you don’t warm-up plastic it won’t be flexible, and is much more likely to "break."

Proper warm up will also help reduce the severity of soreness in the next day or two following the workout. The increased blood flow helps deliver more oxygen to the muscles and gets rid of the waste products that contribute to soreness. Increased blood flow also helps bring more fuel to your body, resulting in better performance.
Warm up with a low impact exercise, such as biking, an elliptical machine, walking, or rowing for 5 – 10 minutes. These exercises allow your body to warm up with limited stress to your joints. It’s important not to stretch statically at this point, because you will lose the effect of your warm-up. You will need to stretch at the end of your workout, but the cardiovascular warm-up will incorporate all the stretching that you need to warm up your muscles.

Another reason for soreness is trying to do too much too soon. Don’t try to make up for lost time. Start out with a few exercises and slowly progress. Your body will gradually adapt to the increased stress. If you are starting resistance training for the first time, try picking 1-2 exercises for each area of the body - the upper body, lower body and core. Also take into consideration the anterior (front) and posterior (back) parts of the body. For example, if you pick two core exercises, you might try bicycle crunch for the abdominals (front of the body) and lumbar extension for the lower back (posterior part of the body).

If you are a beginner to aerobic training, start out with something like walking that raises your heart rate a little bit, nothing that will get you too out of breath. Try doing this for 10 minutes the first few times you exercise, slowly progressing the duration of the workout. If you've increased the time to a point where you can handle 30 minutes at that pace, start building a little more intensity. For example, you could attempt 2 or 3 days of 30 minutes each at your initial pace, followed by a 10-minute day at an increased intensity. Home DVDs are a great way to get fit and there are lots to choose from – check out the Unislim Lighten Up DVD!

Another area of frustration for the beginner is energy level. Most people expect to exercise the first few weeks and experience a shot of energy. In actuality, the opposite often occurs. Your body isn’t used to the added stress, which causes you to feel fatigued and even drained, especially if you overdo it. Don’t get discouraged; it’s natural to feel this way until your body adapts. As your body acclimatises itself, your cardiovascular system will become more conditioned, causing you to have more energy and focus throughout the day. Your efforts will pay off.

Overexertion will trigger stiffness and soreness, causing many people to give up on exercise completely. If you do overdo it, there are a few things you can do to feel better. Exercise actually breaks your muscles down – sleep, nutrition, and hydration play a vital role in their recovery. Proper rest, refueling your body with healthy food, and drinking plenty of water will help you recover much more quickly. In the days that follow, doing a low impact exercise at a low to moderate intensity and stretching afterwards will deliver more oxygen and blood to help clean out the waste and bring more nutrients to your muscles.

Your body loses a large quantity of water when you work out, so it is very important to drink more water as you exercise. Active people should drink at least eight glasses (200 ml each) a day, throughout the day, taking extra care to rehydrate during the workout. This will keep your joints moving fluidly, and flush out the toxins that might be building up in your muscles. Headaches, stiffness, and cramping are all results of dehydration.
Have you started an exercise programme recently? Tell us about it in the Unislim forum!

Short bursts of intense exercise every few days could dramatically cut the risk of diabetes and heart disease, researchers said.
Rather than slaving away for hours in the gym, people should focus their attention on quick "sprints" on an exercise bike, with each workout lasting just a few minutes.
James Timmons, professor of exercise biology at Heriot-WattUniversity in Edinburgh, published a study on the effects of quick exercise.
He said people could reduce their risk of diabetes and heart disease substantially with short, intense workouts.
In his study, published in the journal BMC Endocrine Disorders, 16 men exercised for three sessions a week for two weeks. It resulted in a 23 per cent improvement in insulin function.