Purpose
There are many reasons why people swim, from swimming as a recreational pursuit to swimming as a necessary part of a job or other activity. Some people may also be forced in to swimming involuntarily as a result of falling into water.
The largest reason for people swimming is as a recreation activity, with swimming consistently ranking as one of the physical activities people are most likely to take part in. Recreational swimming can be used for people to exercise, to relax or to rehabilitate. The support of the water, and the reduction in impact, makes swimming accessible for people who are unable to undertake activities such as running.
Swimming is primarily an aerobic exercise due to the long exercise time, requiring a constant oxygen supply to the muscles, except for short sprints where the muscles work anaerobically. As with most aerobic exercise, swimming is believed to reduce the harmful effects of stress. Swimming can also improve posture.
Read more about this topic: Human Swimming
Famous quotes containing the word purpose:
“I have sought his aid—but if after endeavoring to do my best in the light which he affords me, I find my efforts fail, I must believe that for some purpose unknown to me, He wills it otherwise.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“Any historian of the literature of the modern age will take virtually for granted the adversary intention, the actually subversive intention, that characterizes modern writing—he will perceive its clear purpose of detaching the reader from the habits of thought and feeling that the larger culture imposes, of giving him a ground and a vantage point from which to judge and condemn, and perhaps revise, the culture that produces him.”
—Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)
“In those days, when my hands were much employed, I read but little, but the least scraps of paper which lay on the ground, my holder, or tablecloth, afforded me as much entertainment, in fact answered the same purpose as the Iliad.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)