A brief guide to James Clear’s Atomic Habits for outdoor swimmers

n Atomic Habits, James Clear explains how progress in anything is made through the accumulation of small gains. In essence, your habits, how you act day to day, determines where you end up. Atomic Habits is a guide to making it easy to adopt and stick to good habits, and eliminate bad ones.

After reading the book recently, I wondered how you might apply James’s ideas to outdoor swimming.

2020 International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame Induction Virtual Ceremonies 

Almost one in five people lack the protein α-aktinin-3 in their muscle fiber. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden now show that more of the skeletal muscle of these individuals comprises slow-twitch muscle fibers, which are more durable and energy-efficient and provide better tolerance to low temperatures than fast-twitch muscle fibers. The results are published in the scientific journal The American Journal of Human Genetics.

Skeletal muscle comprises fast-twitch (white) fibers that fatigue quickly and slow-twitch (red) fibers that are more resistant to fatigue. The protein α-aktinin-3, which is found only in fast-twitch fibers, is absent in almost 20 percent of people – almost 1.5 billion individuals – due to a mutation in the gene that codes for it. In evolutionary terms, the presence of the mutated gene increased when humans migrated from Africa to the colder climates of central and northern Europe.

New research suggests swimming in cold water could provide big brain benefits

If you took part in a polar plunge to clear the cobwebs and ring in the New Year feeling refreshed and ready, you might want to consider adding some more chilly splashes the rest of the year. It might not all be in your head—or maybe that brand-new feeling is in the very cells of your brain itself.

It seems there could be a connection between swimming in cold water and a healthier brain, according to new research led by Giovanna Mallucci, a professor of clinical neurosciences and associate director of the UK Dementia Research Institute at the University of Cambridge. Her team has recently produced some compelling evidence that cold water swimming could slow age-related cognitive decline and maybe even hold the key to a future cure for dementia.

If you have spent any time hanging around open water swimmers you may have heard the term “after-drop”. If you’ve done any swimming in cool water, you may have experienced it. For the uninitiated, after-drop refers to the decline in your core body temperature after you have got out of the water.

When you swim in cool water the body cleverly tries to protect vital organs by reducing blood flow to the skin and limbs. Thus the core stays warm while the skin, arms and legs cool down. The process is known as peripheral vasoconstriction.

(Soest - 2020-01-27) Recent stond er in de krant dat het heel gezond kan zijn om jezelf regelmatig bloot te stellen aan lage temperaturen. Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt, hoogleraar aan de Universiteit van Maastricht, raadt aan om regelmatig de kou op te zoeken. Volgens hem is het niet nodig om altijd een dikke sjaal en muts te dragen.

De laatste jaren zijn er in de medische literatuur steeds meer studies te vinden naar de gezondheidsvoordelen van regelmatige blootstelling aan koude temperaturen. Wim Hof, die internationaal bekend staat als ‘The Iceman’, is al lange tijd bekend met de kracht van kou. De Nederlander heeft dan ook vele kouderecords op zijn naam staan. Ook werkte hij mee aan verschillende wetenschappelijke onderzoeken. Daarbij is vastgesteld dat wij bewust ons zenuwstelsel en immuunsysteem kunnen beïnvloeden (1, 2). Meditatie en ademhaling zijn daarbij belangrijke factoren. De kracht van meditatie en ademhaling is zo groot, dat kou minder vat krijgt op lichaam en geest. Blootstelling aan kou kan de geest scherpen en trainen, maar er zijn ook vele voordelen voor het fysieke lichaam.