From skin to muscles: 7 weird ways swimming impacts your body

Here is a detailed view at how swimming can impact your body in weird ways.

Swimming pools have a lot of chlorine in the water in order to kill the germs. This can be very bad for your hair. It can lead to hair breakage, dryness and make it brittle and frizzy.

Hair Dilemmas

Smelly skin is another common problem faced by regular swimmers. This smell is also due to chlorinated water. The mixture of chlorine and water gives off a very distinct odor which gets stronger in case it mixes with virus, bacteria or other microorganisms present in the pool.

Chlorine-Smelling Skin

Hyperthermia is another problem that arises due to swimming. Some potential risks include heat exhaustion, heat cramps, heat stress, heat cramps, heat rash and also heatstroke.

Overheating

Swimming has a great reputation for being easy on the joints, while building full body strength and unbeatable cardiovascular capacity. But as with any activity that requires repetitive movement, overuse injuries can occur. Swimming, for example, can cause inflammation on the inside of the knees, research shows.

Swimmer’s Knee

If you spend a lot of time in chlorinated water, your skin might start becoming wrinkly and look like raisins. This is also called raisin skin and toes. This will get worse if you stay in the water for a long time.

Raisin Fingers And Toes

Any time you share water with other people, you run the risk of picking up a germ. If the pool's chlorine and pH levels aren't maintained, or there's overcrowding, you could potentially come down with a unpleasant diarrheal illness.

Risk Contracting Infections

The official name for this is otitis externa. It’s a common infection you can get when you spend a lot of time in any kind of water. 

Swimmer’s Ear

A long soak in a hot tub can give you itchy, bumpy, red spots. The troublemaker is often a germ called Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Spas are harder to keep clean than pools because high temperatures break down chemicals like chlorine faster.

Hot Tub Rash