do swimmers live longer than runners?
I am a swimmer. Not a fast swimmer mind you but I do swim. I am able to swim for an hour non-stop. For me that’s a little over a mile. Fifty yards, once down and back at the Y pool take me about 90 seconds. When I was watching the world championships from Germany I was amazed that the slowest swimmers were doing 50 meters in about 26 seconds.
Measured up against the likes of those guys, I am no swimmer. However, I do like to swim; I find it is an invigorating workout. So when I found this article in a recent issue of AARP Magazine: “Lap It Up – A Daily dip in the deep end could add years to your life,” my intrest was piqued. I have recently begun to actually run. I have graduated from walking to running. It is fun, but my legs get sore afterward.
The article “Lap It Up” cites a study by Steven Blair, a professor of exercise science at the University of South Carolina. His study followed more than 40,000 men ages 20 to 90 for 32 years. The swimmers in the study were 50 percent less like to die during the study period than walkers and runners. Professor Blair was surprised to see such a large difference and says he is reluctant to draw any conclusions.
Blair’s University of South Carolina study was not the only one to find a significant difference between swimmers and non-swimmers. A larger study of more than 355,000 people by heart disease researcher Jeremiah Stamler, MD, of Northwestern University in Chicago found that the more you swim, eat right and avoid tobacco, the longer you’ll live, by as much as ten years. (http://www.active.com/swimming/Articles/Swimmers_live_longer__study_says.htm). The heart disease rate among those who were non-smokers, with normal blood pressure and lower cholesterol levels was significantly lower; they were 80% less likely to die from heart disease than others in the study. Only 6 to 8 percent of these “super-healthy” men, who constitutes only 10 percent in the study, died of heart disease, while the overall rate in the study was about 30 percent.
Though the Northwestern study doesn’t compare swimmers to runners, it is clear from both studies that the activity adds years to peoples lives. The South Carolina study is also not a reason to give up running. It would seem to make a strong argument for cross training. Cross training gives all the muscle groups a workout and trains the full body.
I like to mix up my workouts: I hit the treadmill and weights for a cross training workout at the gym, as I said earlier, I love to swim and I have begun running. I also get a great workout on my bicycle.
