swim fit?

Question
Dear Carrie,
Is it healthy enough to just do breaststroke while excluding other styles? What are the diferences in terms of health benefits between breaststroke, freestyle, backstroke and butterfly? What's the purpose of warm-up and how to do it properly?

Answer
In regards to the breastroke, it depends on what level you are swimming at.  If you swim to stay in shape or for exercise, doing the breastroke is perfectly acceptable.  If you swim on a team or plan on competing, practicing every stroke is important.

Breastroke, for exercise, is a good workout for the inner thighs and pectoral muscles.  If your purpose for swimming is to get into shape, I would recommend swimming the freestyle also.  Freestyle is a great stroke for conditioning and working your arm muscles.  The breastroke is good for the arms, but more for the legs than anything.  Similarly to the freestyle, the backstroke is good for the arms.  Butterfly is a stroke that is usually not done unless the swimmer plans to compete.  The butterfly is an exhausting and active stroke for almost every part of the body.

In your question, you asked what was "healthy" in terms of strokes.  This leads me to believe that you are swimming to stay active.  If this is true, I would recommed the breastroke and freestyle.  It is not "unhealthy" to only swim the breastroke, but doing it to much can lead to knee problems.  Ultimately, I would say half breastroke half freestyle is a good mix.

Finally, you asked about warm-up.  Like any sport or activity, warm-ups are important to staying healthy.  They stretch out the muscles before swimming, and get your body used to intensive movement.  For swimming in cold pools especially, warm-ups are important for acclimating your body to the temperature change.  Beginning a swimming set without warming up in a cold pool would be very bad on the muscles.  

Since I do not know your swim level, it's difficult for me to advise what type of warm-up you should do.  Short swims with approximately 10-15 seconds are typically what warm-ups consist of.  If you are a beginner, I would recommend doing about 200 yards/meters warm up.  If you feel that you are more advanced, try 500 yards/meters.  Divide it into chunks of about 50-100 yards, giving yourself plenty of rest in between.  Warm-ups are generally done with freestyle, although IMs, breastroke, and backstroke are sometimes substituted.

I hope all this helps!  Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Carrie