SWIMMING AFTER A HEART ATTACK

European specialists have long prescribed swimming for their heart disease patients, but only recently has the practice caught on in the United States. Research conducted by Thomas G. Manfredi and his colleagues at the University of Rhode Island Human Performance Laboratory and the Cardiac Rehabilitation Program bears witness to the value of swimming and water exercise in the rehabilitation of cardiac patients. A series of studies found that swimming provides all the cardiovascular benefits that land-based exercises do. And swimming has several major advantages: the energy cost of swimming was similar to that of treadmill and arm exercises, but blood pressure was lower. And swimmers were far less likely than patients who engaged in land-based exercises to suffer heart arrhythmias while exercising. Most important, swimming uses a greater muscle mass than treadmill or arm exercises. Also, a swimming pool is conducive to supportive rather than competitive group interaction, as evidenced by the number of cultures that employ communal bathing as a regular unwinding activity. This improves the chances that the exerciser will stay with the program, which can mean the difference between life and death.

Remember Arnie Spector, the Lynn, Massachusetts, pharmacist? After his heart attack in 1981, Arnie was in such bad condition that he was unable even to take a stress test. But he had no intention of sliding into permanent invalidism. After his surgery, on the advice of his cardiologist, Arnie began swimming. At first he didn’t get very far. The first time in the water he was only able to manage two or three strokes! But he kept plugging away. Two weeks later he swam the length of the pool—twenty-five yards. Within four months he was swimming a mile, in a very respectable forty minutes. He has been a regular swimmer ever since.

Now age sixty-three, Arnie swims a mile three days a week and a half mile three other days. He supplements his swimming by training on a stairclimber for twenty minutes three days a week. And on pleasant evenings he takes a leisurely two-mile walk with his wife, Sandy. He also made some other life-style changes: he quit smoking (he’d been a light smoker), broke the twelve- to fourteen-cup-a-day coffee habit he had started in the navy, and began eating a low-fat, low-sodium diet.

The results of all these changes have been dramatic. At age sixty-three, Arnie Spector is far healthier than he was at fifty—or forty! His blood pressure is down to 128/86, his heart rate is down to sixty, his cholesterol is down to 190, his cholesterol-to-HDL ratio is an excellent 3.8, and his body fat percentage is an “ideal” 15 percent. Not only is he alive but he is fully alive—healthy, happy, and active. And it all started with those first few strokes he took in a pool when he thought he might never again be able to do anything strenuous.

Chapter 5 will explain how swimming can add years and enjoyment to your own life. But first let’s look at swimming and weight.