Over the past two decades, as a by-product of a booming national concern with better health as well as with self-improvement and personal growth, and a desire to crowd more gusto into their lives, Americans have become the leaders of a worldwide fitness revolution. Although some experts predicted a rapid peaking and then sure decline in this trend, it has only recently begun to level off. And, for a significant proportion of the population, regular exercise has become a permanent part of their life-style, because the rewards are so gratifying.
How does swimming fit into this new scheme of things? Every poll addressing the question has shown that swimming is far and away America’s most popular recreational/athletic activity. Yet we might never guess this from the media coverage of the fitness craze, which seems to focus on virtually every activity except swimming.
There are several reasons for this lack of coverage. First, swimming is not economically driven. There are few expensive swimming-related products for companies to market and sell. No $200 designer warm-up suits, no $175 running shoes, no $150 tennis racquets, no $1,000 home gyms. All you really need for swimming is a swimsuit, the less fancy the better, and perhaps goggles and a cap—items that will last a year or more and from which you will never need to graduate to the more advanced model. Because swimming does not create a lucrative market in equipment and attire for potential sponsors, the sport rarely intrudes on the television-controlled consciousness of the American public. Thus, what is an advantage from the point of view of the individual swimmer becomes a disadvantage from the point of view of the sport itself. Only every four years, when the Olympics roll around, is swimming accorded the recognition it deserves. And even this quadrennial moment in the public eye comes about only because American athletes have dominated Olympic swimming competition for over thirty years, as they have no other sport.
Second, an important impetus to the fitness craze is the ever-expanding public consciousness of the health benefits of exercise. Each new study brings out a rush of zealots extolling the virtues of whatever exercise the study found beneficial. But it is hard to do science with people who are in the water. If you are looking to hook people up to scientific apparatus, it is much easier to do so with those on treadmills than with those slicing through water. For convenience, and to protect their expensive equipment, scientists much prefer to conduct their research on out-of-water subjects.
Third, employing the various accepted swimming strokes requires skills not used in everyday life; whereas most people can run reasonably well without instruction, you must learn to swim efficiently. Further, although babies can swim before they can walk, adults tend to perceive the water as a foreign environment and swimming as a means of locomotion unnatural to humans. It is therefore easier for spectators to identify with runners than with swimmers.
Finally, swimmers are simply less visible than joggers. They participate in their activity in pools, lakes, and oceans, generally away from the public eye. But make no mistake about it: invisible as they may be to the nonswimming public, the swimmers are out there, churning up the laps.
All these factors have given rise to and supported the myth that running has become America’s foremost nonspectator pastime and therefore must be the ideal form of exercise. Unfortunately, we have learned over the past few years that running may be one of the worst exercise choices for people over thirty. Yes, it is aerobically sound, but, as ever greater numbers of runners are learning to their sorrow and frustration, the human body is simply not built to withstand the constant pounding on hard surfaces running deals it.
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