You may have been to the gym or fitness centre and spent good money on monotonous repetitive exercises. If you simply flap your arms about you may gain some extra muscle after a long time. Or you could use some weights to get faster results. Increase the weights over time and your results get better, until you get injured.

A Safe Alternative

Swimming pools are a safe alternative to repetitive gym training with less risk of muscle injury. You can use wet clothing instead of weights, so the load is spread more evenly over your body. Keep moving against sufficient resistance often enough and you gain strength no matter what you do, because your muscles get exercised. This is fairly hard training, but you will notice the difference if you keep doing this persistently, preferably with a training partner to keep you motivated.

Skill Refinement

In swimwear or speedy bodysuits you may get away with a bad swimming stroke. You still move ahead somehow. The moment you tow a casualty or wear clothes that slow you down, you'll notice how bad your stroke might be and that you're not going anywhere fast.

Swimming in clothes will quickly highlight issues with your swimming stroke. The added resistance requires that you adapt your swimming stroke and fine tune it. Any adjustments you make will immediately result in a clear diffrence of speed and effort. This gives you the right feedback you need to adjust your stroke. As soon as you improve your skill, your speed picks up quickly.

Set Your Goals

If you are sleeping late every morning, start getting up earlier and earlier. Get a post card, write your goals on it and tape it to your mirror. Seriously, go and do it now. Write on it things like "Do 5 push-ups every morning" or "Fast Walk for 30 minutes every night."

You need to look at your goal card every morning as a reminder of your commitment to yourself. If you can discipline yourself to do this, you can achieve anything you want. If you think this is a silly idea, that you don't need a goal-list staring you in the face every morning, well then, don't say that you weren't warned!

Keep Warm

Keep your "heaters" (legs) moving vigorously to keep your body warm. You can stay warm by wearing a lycra suit and/or an anorak.

Adjust your clothing to suit your fitness level. It is a bit like weight lifting, you can just go up or down a notch by adding or removing a layer.