The human respiratory system responds to swimming exercise in positive, and sometimes negative, ways. Swimming works out your entire body and is a good calorie burner. To keep moving in the water, though, and push past water's resistance, your muscles need a steady and dependable source of nutrients to burn, as well as oxygen to fuel your metabolism.
Exercise and Exertion
Any form of aerobic exercise increases your breathing rate. Aerobic exercise also increases your heart rate and your blood circulation in response to exertion. Your lung capacity and the efficiency with which you take in oxygen and transfer it to blood vessels determine how fast and how far you can swim.
Swimming Conditions
Conditions specific to swimming make your lungs more powerful and efficient, according to Sharon Plowman and Denise Smith, authors of "Exercise Physiology for Health, Fitness and Performance." They explain that you must exert yourself when blowing out air under the water to overcome hydrostatic pressure, and that the process eventually improves lung strength. They also explain that breathing during all strokes except backstroke requires you to pace taking in breaths, which results in deep breathing. You inhale fully after emptying your lungs and gradually increase lung capacity as a result. They also suggest that swimming's horizontal position maximizes your lung function potential.
Increased Exposure
You inhale deeply when you swim, and your increased oxygen intake increases your exposure to contaminants from chemicals in the pool. You might never experience respiratory distress as a casual lap swimmer who uses outdoor pools. However, when you work out often in an indoor pool, the chemicals used in and produced by the disinfection process can cause asthma-like symptoms. Coughing, wheezing and feeling short of breath are some of the problems swimmers report, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC.
Considerations
The potential benefits of swimming on your respiratory system put those who experience lung irritation in a quandary. Exercise-induced asthma afflicts swimmers in, and sometimes out of, the pool. Luckily, medications are available to help prevent attacks before they occur, or once they do. Talk with your physician to diagnose your breathing problems and to help remedy them so that you can continue to reap the health benefits of swimming.
Warning
Holding your breath during exertion is a bad idea in general, and especially when swimming. It can cause blood pressure spikes and blackouts. Hypoxic training involves deliberately limiting the number of breaths you take while sprinting hard to toughen your system to survive oxygen deprivation. Once used for elite athlete training, the practice filtered down to athletes with lower fitness levels. The practice is unhelpful for the average adult fitness swimmer, and potentially dangerous, as detailed by Dr. Paul Hutinger, a Masters swimmer and swimming coach, in "High Intensity Training and Its Relevance to a Hemorrhagic Stroke."
References
- CDC: Your Disinfection Team--Irritants (Chloramines) and Indoor Pool Air Quality
- PubMed.gov: Swimming and Asthma -- Benefits and Deleterious Effects
- "Exercise Physiology for Health, Fitness and Performance"; Sharon Plowman, Denise Smith; 2007
- U.S. Masters Swimming: High Intensity Training and Its Relevance to a Hemorrhagic Stroke
- MayoClinic.com: Exercise-induced asthma
- MayoClinic.com: Aerobic Exercise -- Top 10 Reasons to Get Physical
