Swimming to build/maintain shoulder strength instead of weights

When I think about cardio I don't really consider swimming to be anything of particular note. I always thought that of all the traditional cardio exercises that exist, swimming is probably going to burn the least amount of calories. Of course this can be changed depending on how much you push yourself just like cycling and running or any other cardio exercise.

Swimming does have some great advantages though and for me one of the main ones is the lack of overheating. I still don't consider this to be a good way to build muscle but there is one advantage that I have recently introduced to my routine and that is to use swimming as a method of building shoulder strength.

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Of all the types of physiques that exist out there I think the one that I admire the most is that of swimmers. They just have a truly awesome body style that I consider to be ideal. Sure they aren't going to be a "swole" as bodybuilders but they also have a more natural physique and don't look so beastly like their bodybuilding counterparts. Swimmers also tend to have much better overall health since I know a lot of really big guys at the gym that have zero flexibility and can't even tie their shoes without sitting down. This is likely not an issue for your average swimmer.

The problem I have with swimming is that it doesn't really feel like a workout and once again, this depends on how hard you are pushing yourself just like in any sport. I spend my whole life thinking that swimming burns fewer calories than other cardio but as it turns out, I may have been totally wrong.

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Now a lot of this depends on which stroke you are doing and for me at least, the front crawl or freestyle is not my favorite because I need more air than this stroke can provide for me. It's uncomfortable. What I prefer is breast-stroke and in the past week I have been doing a little bit of an experiment as far as this is concerned. I have been focusing on using my legs as little as possible and instead aiming for big pulls using almost exclusively my upper body.

You may recall that I had recently talked about how I stopped all cardio and started doing weights only for 2 months and there were some pros and cons to this approach. One of the main cons was that I was experiencing a real drop in flexibility and after just a week of changing out my shoulder routine to just be the pool, I have not noticed a drop in my overall strength, but instead it seems to be staying the same. This is good because I don't really want to lose any muscle mass but I also don't like the idea of being inflexible.

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So my suggestion to people out there that want to have "cut" shoulders... and for me this is one of my favorite parts of my body, to try giving swimming a try and maybe don't involve your legs very much. I feel "the burn" in my swims and I also have the added benefit of getting some cardio in there, which is probably a good thing.

I feel as though my decision to stop all cardio and focus on weights only may have been a bad idea, and this might be the time where I change all of that.

_{from star athlete, to fat ass, to the strongest I've ever been in my life over the course of 20 years. I'm constantly changing up my routines and am by no means an expert but I lost over 50 lbs and kept it off and if I can do it, I think most other people can as well}