Swimming myths are a dime a dozen. Not because swimming as an activity is hard to understand and creates leeway for misunderstandings and myths, but because swimming is popular.
All popular things gather a following, and this following usually talk about the thing they are passionate about, and share information with one another.
While the fan base itself is well informed and usually doesn’t fall prey to misinformation and myths, the issue stems from the wider audience.
Other people who hear about said things, can misunderstand the information or even worse spread misinformation willingly or in most cases unknowingly.
Swimming makes no expectation in this regard. However, the reason why swimming has a lot of myths surrounding it is also tied to the fact that swimming is a very universal thing.
All cultures, nations, ethnicities, essentially all humans, are at the very least familiar with the concept of swimming.
This has been the case for a very long time and since back in the day there were little scientific achievements, people would make up stories about the things they couldn’t explain.
This is how polytheitsitc religions came to be, and this method also explains a lot of the myths that people attribute as facts about swimming.
Don’t Swim Right After Eating
Starting with what could be considered as the mother of all swimming myths, this idea is quite the popular one.
The phrase: “don’t swim right after eating”, or alternations of that, is something that pretty much every single one of us has heard at least once as a child.
It is one of those sayings that a lot of people will nod along with and many adults continue to tell their children not to swim after eating. When it comes to swimming myths, this is not only the most popular, but also one that has withstood the test of time.
There is no evidence that ties eating before swimming with any particularly dangerous side effect that can happen.
In fact, swimming is a very demanding activity, which will burn a lot of calories for you! It is common for athletes to eat snacks before jumping into the pool.
Don’t let this be an excuse for you to consume junk food though. While the food you eat won’t affect your swimming, it will affect other things if you don’t eat right.
Some People Are Unable To Swim
While the first myth was one of the most famous swimming myths, our second entry is one of the most devastating swimming myths.
Not because it particularly endangers people, but because of all the swimming myths, this one robs most people of the enjoyment that swimming can provide.
There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that some people are ‘wired’ or predisposed to not be capable of swimming.
Some truth can be found within the fact that better hand-eye coordination can help people learn to swim faster, but that doesn’t mean there are people who just can’t learn to swim.
This even applies to differently abled individuals. Nowadays, there are many options for special needs swimming lessons.
It might not seem as a gigantic tragedy at first sight, the idea that some people can be turned away from ever learning swimming just because they heard this myth, but there is more to it.
What people can miss out isn’t a simple hobby that we happen to be very passionate about. Swimming is a hobby, right until the moment that it becomes a life saving necessity!
All Swimming Lessons Are The Same
Swimming myths have the potential to be extremely dangerous. Keep in mind that if you believe in a myth and things go wrong, most of the time you will be fine.
Believe some of the swimming myths circulating and you very easily find yourself in a situation where you face immense risk of drowning.
Of all the swimming myths that circulate this is the most painful one! It is also akin to the myth that just about everyone can learn swimming on their own and professional help isn’t needed.
Swim lessons differ a lot in many different ways. The first and most obvious is the difference between private swim lessons and group swim lessons.
Then you have to consider that swim lessons can be designed with a huge array of different outcomes in mind.
Swimming lessons can be designed for anything from learning basic, freestyle swimming all the way to triathlon preparation and competitive swimming training.
Even people who have the ability to swim, or at least to do freestyle swimming, can benefit from swimming lessons. There will always be something new you can learn and master.
No Need To Hydrate When Swimming
Most of the time you will be submerged into water anyway. So what is the point of drinking water while you are swimming?
As we said earlier swimming myths can be very dangerous at times. Although this myth doesn’t directly increase your chances of drowning, it does so indirectly.
To understand why we need to point out that you definitely should keep yourself hydrated and drink water while swimming.
This is because your body needs it, and even though you won’t feel yourself sweating, the need for water hasn’t vanished.
Without proper hydration you make it hard for your body to function properly, which in turn can lead to a huge increase in the risk of drowning.
Keep hydrated and take care of yourself when swimming. We can’t hammer this point down enough, swimming is very demanding and you need to make sure your body is ready for it!
Swimming In Deep Water Is Harder
Swimming myths can sometimes be very easy to understand why they exist. From all the swimming myths we’ve heard this is the one that we understand the most.
It feels almost like common sense to assume that swimming in deep water is going to be more complicated and way different than swimming in shallow ones.
However, the fact of the matter is that the depth of the water doesn’t contribute at all to your ability or inability to swim.
Swimming in deep water can be scary for some people. A lot of our students have a fear of water and sometimes this fear of water is a fear of the ocean.
Thalassophobia is known as the fear of deep waters. Most of the time people who face this phobia are afraid of large bodies of water such as the ocean; and especially of the things that may lurk in them.
Swimming myths have existed for thousands and thousands of years. Swimming myths have pretty much followed us throughout our entire history.
In debunking these 5 swimming myths we aimed to educate and hopefully you part ways with this writing, having learned a new thing or two, about the world around us.
