I was thinking about adding swimming to my daily workouts. My question is does it also help with getting rid of the love handles as well?

 

yeah just do a few sets of butterfly in every workout. That will get your abs pretty firm.

 

30 - 40 laps ! Wow. That's where I want to be.

Seems like as I get older (I'm 31) that I'm much more satisfied with stamina exercises than weights. Don't get me wrong...my dad dragged me into the squat rack at 13 and I've never left but biking & swimming is like a whole new high.

 

Just mix everything up a bit (i.e. instead of doing 30 laps continuously, do it in sets of 10's so for 10 you could swim, 10 you could kick, and 10 you could pull using a pull bouy (sp?)). I'm a swimmer of 14 years and have found that mixing practices up is the only way to keep your mind off of how tired you actually are. I started at 30-40 laps then progressed to about 400-500 laps a practice

 

Yes it will. Swimming helps you get that lean body shape. But keep in mind that if you're trying to get rid of it through swimming only, it'll take longer than if you were to run, lift weights, etc. along with it (assuming that you do the latter because you said "adding to my daily workouts")

 

400 to 500 laps?! How long does that take you?

Yesterday when I went swimming, there was this 70 year old woman sharing a lane with me, and she stayed right behind me the entire time. I couldn't lose her! Not that I was swimming my fastest, but it was pretty amazing seeing someone so old in such great shape.

 

Its 2 3-hour practices a day so we swim about 400 absolute minimum laps a practice. Yeah its really cool to see the older generation swimming. When I swam briefly at college, I saw a bunch of 40-60 yr old men and women keeping up with me which was neat.