Team University of Dayton Engineering & Safety Lab No. 13: Try Swimming This Summer!

Exercising three times a week is a widely recognized method for improving health, but the type of exercise performed can greatly affect what aspects of your health are improved. Recently researchers have compared different aerobic activities such as jogging and swimming to determine what types of exercise can help improve balance and hand eye coordination and to what extent.


It has been found by H. -C. Hsu and his lab that swimming three times a day can significantly improve balance and reaction time due to improved hand eye coordination. The study was carried out with two groups of people all between the ages of 60 and 75. Both groups exercised regularly three times a week, but while one group swam for their exercise, the other performed activities such as jogging and rock climbing. The evaluators were blind to the type of exercise each participant had been performing.

This finding is extremely accommodating to the members of the population that are frail or have joint problems because swimming, unlike most other physical activities, does not put any significant pressure on the joints and bones of the human body. The best way to start exercising by swimming would be to practice until you can swim for ten minutes at a time, and then swim 500 yards, or thirty minutes, three times a week for an extended period of time alternating non-exercising and exercising days.