Talk:Winter swimming

Redirect
I think that this redirect is incorrect. Winter swimming is distinct from Ice Swimming because there are many countries where Winter Swimming occurs but ice does not. Also that many people will swim in water in the winter when the water is above freezing, but not swim when the temperature is below freezing.

In my opinion, either there should be a separate Winter Swimming page or the Ice Swimming page should be rewritten to cover "Winter and Ice Swimming". Ross-c 09:20, 21 October 2007 (UTC)


 * No action was taken on this. I have edited the page to give a minimal stub for winter swimming. There is a link to Ice swimming, so the previous connection is maintained. But the factual inaccuracy that Winter Swimming == Ice Swimming is removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ross-c (talk • contribs) 11:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

In an external forum, there is some discussion as to whether swimming in cold water without a wetsuit qualifies as Winter Swimming or not. At present the definition here is left general, but a solid definition with external information would be useful. Ross-c (talk) 13:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I intend to expand this page in the future. However, if anyone sees this, I would appreciate comment on whether winter and ice swimming require separate pages. At present I've removed the redirect as the Ice Swimming page is solely about swimming in ice water. Winter swimming in other countries where it gets cold but doesn't ice up (yeah, the UK where I am) is quite different. A compromise page on Ice and Winter Swimming would be reasonable, but may antagonise the Ice Swimming folks. Ross-c (talk) 10:10, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Merge proposal
I think that winter swimming and ice swimming belong together. It is quite obvious that ice swimming implies winter swimming, even in areas where the winter has a duration that covers the whole year. And it is also clear that winter swimming usually does not imply ice swimming. But I think that the ice is not really a relevant fact, it is just an indication that according to the non-metric Celsius-scale the temperature is around 0 (if not salty) and that it won't get any colder, but according to the Fahrenheit scale which happens to be more adequate for judging the human recognition of temperatures this is not such a relevant point. The main aspects of winter swimming have to do with the interaction of the human body with cold water, which is basically the same with temperatures that allow the existence of ice and temperatures and saltinesses that do not allow the existence of ice, but are still in a range that is dangerous for longer swimming activities and considered very cold to most humans, especially by those who are not accustomed to it. So I would recommend putting the human activity into the center and merge the two articles under the name "winter swimming" and make "ice swimming" a forwarder to "winter swimming". -- Bk1 168 (talk) 20:00, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ on 14 November 2011, but apparently I forgot to update this section! -- Trevj (talk) 21:22, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

not sufficiently explained on this page - why??!
I think this article should take the time to explain why exactly people do this. It briefly says that in Russia they think it has a health benefit, but I'd like to know if there's any truth behind that dubious claim. --86.137.156.17 (talk) 23:33, 1 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The text says: "Ice swimming is possible because the freezing of water releases heat, so that the water does not refreeze instantly."


 * That is nonsense. It doesn't require knowledge of physics to know that water will freeze when temperatures are below zero.


 * Better: the water doesn't freeze with the aid of water pumps that wil constanly mix the water or with the aid of air pumps that will blow constantly air through the water and thus also mixing the water from deeper layers with the surface water.


 * Health effects: have not been proven (research from Smolander, University of Oulu, Finland), however, ice swimmers have a better condition. Perhaps they had a better condition before they started this sport. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.175.134.248 (talk • contribs) 12:22, 22 February 2009

Bio page, possibly related
Although at first this might seem counterintuitive, editors here may be interested in an AfD here. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:40, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Section of health benefits
I just added a section on health benefits (I forgot to describe my change). I was hoping if anyone else could take a look at the scientific journal articles I've used to write the content for the section. For the first paragraph the wording could probably be improved, for the second paragraph this article seems to disagree with Siems et al. (1999). As this is not my field of science I'm not sure if I interpret the articles right. AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 20:38, 25 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I've just reverted the content of the section to my old revision of 25 November 2012. Four edits were made to it on the following dates, all by anonymous editors:
 * 12 December 2012 was unfounded because the experimental setup prevents such confounding variables. If anyone has reason to doubt the scientific study, I emphasize it's a study from a peer-reviewed journal. If there are other scientific studies which provide different results, let's add them, but I couldn't find them.
 * 30 December 2012 added a "may" to the claim that winter swimming improves general well-being. This is not justified because there is no uncertainty in the conclusions of the study.
 * 22 March 2013 added "citation needed" tags to findings of the study. Unnecessary because at the end of paragraph there was in fact a reference!
 * 4 July 2013 reverted the 12 December edit (which is a good thing).

"Exercise in extreme cold promotes weight loss, since more fat is used to insulate the body from the low temperatures" - This doesn't make sense and it's not what the source says. 89.241.86.93 (talk) 16:22, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Merger proposal
The content in the article polar bear plunge contains considerable overlap with the national traditions section in this article. I suggest we merge the content from that article into this article. Possibly there is also content in the ice bath article that's more suitable for this article, but I'll bring that up later.


 * Comment on merger proposal:
 * By merging you would lose the essence of the difference between a 'Polar Bear Plunge' on New Year's Day and the distinct practice of swimming in cold water. The 'Polar Bear Plunge' is an event. Cold water swimming is a custom. We might loosely compare the difference as similar to that between 'skydiving' and 'flying' as two distinct but related activities. As well, while it is true that a participant in a 'Polar Bear Plunge' normally enters cold water in the northern hemisphere, this is not true in the southern hemisphere where it is neither winter nor cold. Further, most 'Polar Bear Plunge' participants are there to participate in the absurdity of the event for the sheer zany joy of it, and have no intention of actually swimming for exercise or health benefits. By merging the articles into one, the distinctiveness of the event would not be appreciated for what it is: a cultural example of collective silliness and celebration.
 * ¬¬¬¬ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sv.blackdog (talk • contribs) 15:45, 29 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I (also) do not support a merger. While both pages deal with immersion in cold, maybe frigid or even ice covered water, generally few people actually swim during a plunge, they just take the plunge, sometimes in fancy dress, and (for the most part), rush back to shore as fast as possible.  Cold water swimming generally involves actual swimming and attracts mainly swimming enthusiasts.


 * In passing, I did note that some of the content on this page would be more appropriate on the polar bear plunge page. Perhaps this is where some of the confusion arises, since some editors have contributed content to the winter swimming page that more properly belongs on the polar bear plunge page.


 * I would therefore propose, instead, that the two pages are edited, and content swapped as appropriate, to make it clearer that the two pages describe two somewhat different activities.
 * Enquire (talk) 03:50, 1 January 2014 (UTC)


 * After reading both your comments I'm convinced that your proposals are probably the best way to fix this. I'll remove my merge proposal and make the appropriate changes to both articles in due time. --AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 07:45, 2 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Support merging. Polar bear plunge, if it's defined to be new year's only, is a specific type of the concept of Winter swimming. The Winter swimming article would better capture the international picture of the custom. -- Makkachin (talk) 01:23, 11 April 2015 (UTC)