Swimming

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Managing diabetes takes balance. Not the kind of balance where you stand on one leg, or spin a basketball on your nose. Managing diabetes means keeping the food you eat, the medicine you take, and the activities (things) you do in balance, so they all work together for your health.

That’s why your doctor asks about your “activity level” to make sure everything is balancing out. To a lot of people, “activity level” is a fancy way of saying exercise, and that may not sound like a whole lot of fun. But the truth is, activity, exercise, working out, or whatever you want to call it can be a blast. And, yeah, it can also help you manage diabetes.

The most important thing is to find an activity you like to do or would like to learn. For a lot of kids -- whether they have diabetes or not -- swimming is one of their first choices. Whether you go to the pool to hang out with swimming buddies or to train for the race of your life, water activity provides one of the best workouts you can get. You can burn 350 calories or more in one hour of swimming. (A fact that will make you and your doctor happy.) It doesn’t matter if you’re sticking your toe in the water for the first time ever or a butterfly swimmer going for the gold, swimming is a lot of fun.

How Did It All Begin

Swimming may have begun hundreds of thousands of years ago when a caveman was running from a mastodon (an extinct animal) and the only escape was diving into a lake. Or maybe when ancient families were looking for food and noticed apple trees on the other side of the river. To get food for lunch, they jumped in for their first swimming lesson.

We know that ancient people like the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Persians, Romans, and Greeks swam because we have 6,000-year-old drawings and sculptures that show them swimming. Julius Caesar, a Roman general who lived well over 2,000 years ago, was known to be an excellent swimmer.

The Japanese can point to evidence that swimming races were held 2,000 years ago. The modern sport of swimming can be traced back to England in the 1830s. It became an Olympic sport for men in 1896. Women were not allowed to compete in Olympic swimming events until 1912.

Happening Today

Although people have swum since ancient times, swimming strokes have been greatly improved in the past 100 years. Scientists have studied strokes and have made new and different ones which have also gotten faster. Today, the Olympics have developed 32 races, 16 for men and 16 for women. There are 44 competitive swimming events for people with disabilities in the Special Olympics, 22 for women and 22 for men.

Who’s Happening Today

One of the fastest swimmers in US history is Gary Hall, Jr. He has competed in three Olympic Games and has won eight Olympic medals. Four of them gold, three silver, and one bronze. Gary and his father are the only father-son duo in history to each have competed in three Olympic Games.

And if that isn’t amazing enough, Gary has diabetes. He was diagnosed in 1999, one week before he was to compete in the Spring Nationals. His doctor told him he wouldn’t be able to compete ever again.

Like many people who have diabetes, Gary kept wondering “Why me?” He said “I was extremely upset, shocked and discouraged. I didn’t have a very good understanding of what diabetes was. I believed that it happened to older, over-weight, and under-active people, and here I had spent my entire life eating right, exercising, minding my health, and etc. There is no history of diabetes anywhere in my family, so you can imagine my disbelief.”

At first, Gary had problems accepting the fact he has diabetes. “The first thing that I did was go home to my computer and look up as much about diabetes as I could. And having a better understanding of what it was and how to treat it gave me some encouragement.” Even more encouragement came from his new doctor, Anne Peters. Dr. Peters told him there was no reason to quit swimming. She went with him to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia where he won individual gold and bronze medals as well as gold and silver in relay races.

Gary not only learned how to compete in spite of having diabetes, he learned how exercise and training can help manage his disease. For most people with diabetes, this is the most important lesson. But as Gary Hall proved, you should not rule out the possibility of gold medals in your future.

What’s All The Talk About Swimming

If you’ve ever wondered why swimmers sometimes bob up and down in the water and other times just lie on their fronts or backs and paddle their arms, these simple explanations of swimming strokes will help you figure it out.

Freestyle: The stroke now called freestyle is also known as the front crawl or Australian crawl. In freestyle, the swimmer is on her or his front moving one arm forward at a time. This is called an overarm stroke. The flutter kick is used and the face is in the water but turns to the side to take a breath. (More on this stroke later.)

 

Backstroke: Lying on his or her back, the swimmer moves one arm at a time in an over-the-head stroke. Flutter kicks are used.

Breaststroke: While on their fronts, swimmers’ arms pull from in front of their heads to shoulder level while their legs do a frog kick. Their arm and leg movements push forward together and come back under the surface of the water.

 

 

Butterfly: This stroke is difficult and tiring and is one where swimmers bob up and down in the water. It is done on a swimmer’s front. The butterfly uses a dolphin kick with a windmill-like motion of both arms at once.

 

 

Sidestroke: This is a relaxing way to swim. Swimmers lie on their side and do a forward underwater stroke with their arms while they do a scissors kick.

 

 

 

How Do You Do That?

After people get comfortable in the water and learn how to blow bubbles and float, they often learn the freestyle stroke. Here’s an explanation of how to do the stroke, but remember watching a teacher demonstrate the techniques might be much more helpful.

In the freestyle, the easy part is the kick. Use a flutter kick, which is done by slightly bending the knees and quickly moving your feet up and down. Right down, left down, right down, left down, and so on. Don’t move them up and down at the same time. You want your feet to look like a duck swimming, not a dolphin. This kick helps to keep the body balanced and moving while you do most of the work with your arms.

 

 

 

 

Now imagine lying in the water face down. Don’t worry, you don’t have to hold your breath while you imagine. Your left arm is stretched out in front of you and your right arm is at your side. The stroke begins with your right elbow leaving the water first and staying high while your hand reaches forward to enter the water. This part is called “recovery.”

The next part is the “entry and catch.” With your hand cupped a little bit, reach forward and out a little to catch the water for the “out sweep.”

The out sweep is when you bring the water toward your body. When your cupped hand gets even with your head, you want to push the water along your body toward your hips. This is the “in sweep.” At your hips, give the water one last press toward your feet. This is cleverly called the “press.” And you have competed an arm cycle.

Your challenge is to get your right and left arm to work together on these arm cycles while your feet are flutter kicking. When all that happens you will be swimming like a champ.

How To Get Started

You need two things to start swimming -- a swim suit and a body of water. Both are pretty easy to find. Most cities and towns have public swimming pools where lessons are offered. Call your city parks and recreation department to find out about lessons, cost, and hours the pools are open.

Some cities will have private pools or swim clubs. At these you will need to be a member so it will cost you more than a public pool. These also offer lessons as well as teams to join and coaching.

There might be a pond, lake, river, or ocean near your home. These can also be very fun to swim in but they do not offer the same safety as pools.

Make sure they are safe to swim in and you wear a life jacket if the water is deep. And don’t forget the other safety rules in the next sections.

Safety in the Water

The best way to be safe in the water is to learn how to swim. Take lessons and practice. Then obey the following rules.

• Remember the buddy system. Never swim alone.
  

• Swim only when and where there is a life guard.
  

• Watch out for the “dangerous too’s.” Too tired. Too cold. Too far from safety. Too much sun. Too much tough activity.
  

• Don’t let these happen to you.
  

• Pay attention to the weather. Get out of the water at the first sign of bad weather. Remember, thunder and lightening are not swimmers’ friends.

Diabetes Safety in the Water

Swimming can be anything from a fast race to a lazy float. Naturally, the harder you swim, the more calories you’ll burn and the more it can affect your diabetes. But even lazy swims take energy. So remember to pay attention to your diabetes every time you go in the water.

Always check your blood glucose (sugar) before you start. If it’s too high or low, do what your doctor’s told you to do to take care of it before you head out. Remember, you use a lot of different muscles when you swim, so don’t be surprised if your blood glucose drops while you’re in the pool.

Check, check, and check again. When you stop for a break, grab your meter. Remember that low blood glucose can feel just like being tired. The only way you can know for sure is to check.

Always carry something with you to take care of low blood glucose. Put some glucose tablets in a watertight baggie and keep them with your meter.

Make sure someone you’re swimming with knows you have diabetes. Mention it to the life guard. Tell them that you know how to take care of yourself, and that you shouldn’t have any problems. But if something should happen, it helps for them to know. And always, ALWAYS, ALWAYS wear some kind of medical ID necklace or bracelet.

Your body can be thirsty and dry even when you’re in the water. And that can cause your blood glucose to go high. So make sure you’re drinking plenty of water. (Soda doesn’t count. Sorry.)

Be nice to your feet. Always wear sandals or water shoes when you’re walking around the pool. Stepping on a piece of glass or a sharp rock can cause big problems. And, besides that, it hurts!

More Info, Please

You can get more information about swimming at your local Red Cross chapter, libraries, bookstores, or online.  Try these Web sites and have fun learning more about the sport. Then you can have even more fun doing it.

www.swimming.about.com

www.swiminfo.com

www.garyhalljr.com

www.pponline.co.uk

www.penangswimming.com

www.howtobefit.com