Lowell Offer was 74 when he went in for surgery to repair a valve in his heart. This kind of operation is no cakewalk, he says--patients typically spend as much as a week in the hospital, and many suffer sternum pain for several months.

Not Offer. He was home in four days, out walking a few days later, and pain was not a major issue. "I got through surgery without a lot of problems," he says. His secret? Masters swimming.

For the past 10 years, Offer has been part of the United States Masters Swimming program at the University of California, Los Angeles. One of some 500 clubs that are part of the United States Masters Swimming organization, the UCLA Bruin Masters club helped Offer get into prime physical condition, and that, in turn, helped ease him through heart surgery.

The national organization has about 42,000 members, according to Jim Miller, a physician in Richmond, Virginia, who serves as president of United States Masters Swimming, or USMS for short. The organization is open to adults 18 and over who are committed to improving their lives through structured workouts in the pool. USMS programs typically offer coaching to improve technique and maintain motivation, and many members compete in USMS competitions at the local, state and national levels.

"Fitness is a huge component" that motivates USMS participants, Miller says. Members--from noncompetitors to competitive swimmers to triathletes--typically list fitness as their primary reason for joining the organization. But, he adds, "they also list the social aspect very high in their criteria."

"It's a program for adults looking for some sort of structured workout to reach the goals that they have," says Mel Goldstein, a past president of USMS who runs the Indy SwimFit program in Indianapolis. "It's for adults who have chosen aquatics as a means for a healthier lifestyle."

The reasons for choosing aquatics are many, proponents say. Offer's story is a typical example. A Walt Disney Company retiree who handled various audio-visual duties for the entertainment giant, Offer became a fitness buff years before he turned to swimming for health.

"When I was 40 or so, I was diagnosed with having diabetes and was overweight," he says. He started running to improve his fitness, which worked fine until miles of pavement pounding took a toll on his knees. "I rode a bicycle for a few years, until I had an accident. Out of desperation, I got into swimming."

But that wasn't a success at first, either. "I swam by myself, and it was discouraging," he says. In 1995, Offer became one of the first members of a new USMS club at UCLA and began swimming structured workouts under the guidance of coach Gerry Rodrigues. "Gerry taught me to swim with better technique, and I got into the best physical condition of my life."

That conditioning turned out to be an invaluable ounce of prevention when Offer went in for heart surgery in December, Rodrigues says. "Because of his great fitness, his recovery has been tremendous. Because he stayed active and healthy and fit, he was out of the hospital in a few days, which is quite remarkable."

Swimming for fitness helps the body prepare not just for heart surgery but for all sorts of medical events, he adds. "My wife swam right up until two hours before she had a baby," Rodrigues says. "That's not uncommon."

Indeed, Goldstein has seen the same thing at his Indianapolis USMS club. "We have a lot of younger women who swim al the way up through their pregnancy. They come back to their normal body shape a lot quicker."

Structured Swimming

Swimming is clearly an individual sport, and there's no reason a person couldn't achieve this kind of success with regular trips to the health-club pool. So why join a program like United States Masters Swimming?

As Offer discovered, for many people it's not enough to simply dive in and swim laps. USMS, says Goldstein, is for "the fitness swimmer who gets tired of swimming back and forth and is looking for something more," he says. That something more begins with the watchful eye of the local USMS coach. "It's the coach's job to get you to move up to the next level by going faster and farther."

A typical workout, he says, will last an hour to 75 minutes. Local clubs normally offer numerous swim times and in many cases multiple locations, so that busy adults can fit the workouts into their schedules. "It's your responsibility to get to the pool, and we'll get you to where you want to go," Goldstein says.

"Most of my triathletes and fitness swimmers will be there three or four times a week," he continues. "Those interested in competitive swimming may show up for as many as six workouts a week."

The workouts are varied, Goldstein says, depending on swimmers' abilities and their goals. The coach will suggest different strokes and speeds, as well as other types of aquatic exercise, as the session progresses. "Not every day is going to be exactly the same," Goldstein says. "We have to keep you interested, keep you alert, and keep you coming back."

Interval training is one common approach. It involves alternating between specified amounts of exercise and rest. The coach may suggest swimming a certain distance within a certain time, then resting for a specified interval, then repeating that back-and-forth routine. Sets and intervals will vary from one swimmer to another, but Miller says the approach is the same whether the swimmer is an elite competitor or a novice fitness swimmer.

Research indicates that interval training offers improved health benefits over simple lap swimming. Bringing a coach into the picture also helps with the follow-through. "Having a coach give you intervals and challenging you is completely different from trying to swim on your own," Offer observes.

"It is a real good motivator," agrees Bill Volckening, a master swimmer who edits the national organization's magazine, USMS Swimmer. "It provides a really good structure for people who need more than just an exercise machine."

Support from a coach helps ensure that participants stick with the program, Miller adds. "If somebody is encouraged in an activity, they are much more likely to continue with that activity. Most of us like the feedback."

But the structure--and its variation--is just part of the appeal of masters swimming, Goldstein says. "The thing that really brings people back is the camaraderie you develop with your lane-mates."

The Case for Swimming

"I'm not sure I know of a person who couldn't benefit from aquatic activity," says Miller, the USMS president, who's also a family-practice and sports-medicine physician. "You can work both your upper and lower body."

"It's a low-impact sport," adds Goldstein. "It's not weight-bearing. People don't have to worry about arthritis and bursitis and other ailments."

Because of those various ailments, many people find they have to avoid some other forms of exercise. Volckening, for example, wanted to drop some of his 265 pounds and decided that some pursuits simply were not appropriate. "I found running to not be a very good fit for me," he says. "It put a lot of stress on my joints, especially when I was carrying extra weight. It hurt my knees, hips and ankles."

And while Volckening finds cycling to be more interesting than running, he has trouble finding roads free from traffic. "I don't think it's a very safe activity for me," he says.

Swimming, on the other hand, turned out to be an ideal way for the Oregon resident to lose weight. By improving his diet and following a solid swimming regimen, he cut his weight from 265 to 195, and went from a 42-inch waist to a 34. "The first 50 pounds came off in about four months, and the last 20 came off in another four," he says.

Seniors, too, often find swimming to be a more appealing workout. "You can swim in your later years much more easily than you can do other activities, such as running," Volckening observes.

USMS counts among its 42,000 members a number who are in their 90s, and has even welcomed a few centenarians. Avid swimmer Lowell Offer turns 75 this spring, and Goldstein--who himself lost more than 40 pounds swimming--believes the sport will help him add quite a few years to his current 66. "It's going to make me live a lot longer and give me a much more meaningful life."

Swimming as Therapy

As someone who has held a number of world swimming records, 69-year-old Cav Cavanaugh of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, doesn't need to be convinced about the benefits of swimming. But he has found swimming to be helpful in his recovery from rotator-cuff surgery.

The former high-school math teacher and aquatics coach injured his shoulder swimming in March 2004 and was unable to swim without severe pain. Physical therapy didn't help, so in June he opted for shoulder surgery. His doctor recommended ongoing physical therapy to help him heal following the surgery.

After two months, Cavanaugh was becoming frustrated with his physical therapy. "My left arm was practically useless, even though I had been seeing the physical therapist on a regular basis," he says.

So he began spending more time in the pool. *Swimming seemed to be the biggest help in overcoming my strength and flexibility problem. I stopped seeing the physical therapist and concentrated on swimming." Though he's still not back up to his former speed, he's been told that his shoulder is now fully healed.

Cavanaugh and his wife, Debbie, run a local USMS program. Like Cav, Debbie is an enthusiastic swimmer, but a few years ago as she approached her mid-40s, she was concerned that she had put on an extra 20 pounds. "So I put my mind to swimming and training extra-hard."

Debbie Cavanaugh admits that her biggest motivation was speed. "It helps not to be overweight," she says, and as she approached 45, she realized that she would soon enter a new age bracket for USMS competition. "I was going to be the young girl in the age group and wanted to win a national championship."

So, with the help of a group of other swimmers, she stepped up her routine and improved her diet. She lost the weight and won her first national championship in 2002 in the 100-meter back long course. "I have gone from [being] a so-so swimmer to a top 10 world-and national-ranked swimmer," she says.

Becoming a Masters Swimmer

United States Masters Swimming was launched in the spring of 1970 when a San Diego military doctor named Ransom J. Arthur helped arrange a national swimming championship for adults. He hoped to inspire older Americans to improve their fitness through swimming, and the idea caught on quickly.

Originally, the organization was open to adults 25 and over, but Miller says the rules were changed when executives realized that young adults between 18 and 25 had few organized swimming options. Through high school, he explains, many people are involved in school or club swim competitions, but most aren't good enough to make a college team. That left a time interval when many young adults fell out of the habit of fitness swimming. "In those six years, there was an added 50 pounds," Miller says.

The important thing, participants say, is that it's open to people of all abilities and motivations. Though about a third of USMS's members compete regularly, many are there solely for the workout and camaraderie.

Whatever the reason for joining, Goldstein says the program that has so far attracted 42,000 could benefit many, many more. "I believe in my heart of hearts that there should be hundreds of thousands," he says. "People need to be educated."

"We're a sedentary society," Miller agrees. "We have got to get [people] moving. We're trying to mobilize America."