Everybody aims to develop certain physique that has impressed them in the past. Some may get inspired by their favourite hero or some people may have seen the photo of a personality and got awed by it.

Developing a certain type of physique requires a lot of training from a fitness expert and also a consultation with a dietician who recommends certain foods and suggests what the body requires for such an extensive workout.

A swimmer’s physique requires development of a lean and toned torso (medium to long) in addition to well-defined muscles which are not bulky. This gives a healthy look to the swimmer.

Swimmers also have broad shoulders and a completely flat abdomen. With supple arms, wide back, trim and strong waist with lean legs, the effect is regal when they obtain a great posture and a long body.

Swimmer’s physique of a woman looks slightly different. The muscles are well developed as in the case of men. Since it shows mostly in the triceps, biceps and shoulders, it may look too broad or bulky.

Swimming is not the only exercise recommended to develop a swimmer’s physique. Weight training, aerobic activities and bodybuilding exercises should also be included as a part of the routine. These activities ensure universal muscle development and improve the cardiovascular health. Running and cycling adds a lot of value to the overall fitness and development.

One should be aware that just by swimming vigorously as exercise and not accompanying it with other exercise routines can cause imbalances in the muscle development. This is because, be any stroke or style, all swimming actions are pulling actions and you do not push. Hence, the endurance and strength of certain muscle groups is lost greatly whereas some muscles are trained too hard and this causes a lot of pain.

In addition, since the pulling muscles are trained and not the pushing muscles, the growth of these muscle groups is not symmetrical and hence, the improvement in the movements comes to a screeching halt. Hence, most of the swimmers are asked to strengthen their push muscles through weight resistance exercises in order to balance the strength and development of muscle groups uniformly.

The typical swimmer’s body looks v-shaped where lean muscles are built with weight training. For this, the fat percentage of the swimmer’s body is about 10-15%. Swimmers should monitor the body fat in the broad back as well as the waist line. Aerobic exercises help you increase your perseverance as well as burn out excess fat.

Swimmers need to watch out what they eat. Again, eating high fatty foods would only delay in getting the desired physique. A good combination of exercise and diet would make sure that the excess calories and fat are burnt and also adequate nourishment is provided to the body for its overall development.

Remember that the concept of spot reducing is a fad. This means that if you have a lot of fat in your belly, by just doing sit-ups is not going to solve the problem. Work-outs should be distributed to tone all muscles in the body.

Mark Perry

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