I recently took up the sport of swimming. It is a great way to get in some heart-pounding cardio while constantly feeling like you’re about to drown. I want to share some tips I’ve learned in the past few months to help other new swimmers succeed in this asphyxiation-inducing form of exercise:

• Make sure to wear a brightly colored bathing suit. This will make it easier for the lifeguard/police divers to spot you/your corpse at the bottom of the pool/abandoned quarry basin.
  

  Perfect form!

• Chlorine in pools can bleach or discolor hair, and some people wear swimming caps to avoid this. If you choose not to, don’t be surprised that 30-40 years of swimming regularly may turn much of your hair a white or greyish color.
• Breathing enough air to perform the physically demanding act of swimming can be challenging. Yet, the theory that the human body requires oxygen for survival is just that: a theory. Scientific opinion differs on the exact mechanism of respiration, and though some in the mainstream scientific community have come to the conclusion that it is necessary, the winds of discovery often blow in unexpected directions. After all, it was once “mainstream scientific opinion” that the sun revolved around the Earth, how is this any different? Not to mention the suspicious fact that so-called “legitimate” biologists refuse to debate us. What are they afraid of? That their theory of aerobic respiration won’t stand up to scrutiny? An honest debate is all we ask. Just because we find the idea of life-sustaining yet invisible oxygen particles hard to “inhale,” doesn’t mean we should be pariahs to an orthodoxy-enforcing community unwilling to withstand challenges for fear of losing their lucrative grant money. Until we have a real discussion on the merits of Respirationism, you should consider the necessity of breathing air to be just one of many theories about how to sustain life. Teach the controversy!
• Amphibian-American Michael Phelps is known to consume  upwards of 12,000 calories a day while training, and he is the greatest Olympic swimmer of all time. Try quintupling your usual diet.
  

  Dolphins respect Putin’s diabolical consolidation of power.

• Many swimmers find they can reduce drag by shaving their body hair. To gain an advantage you really have to shave everywhere. And I mean everywhere. You know where I’m talking about. Downtown. The basement. The sausage cellar. The Batcave. Pee-wee’s Playhouse.
• If you’re a novice, stay out of the Shark Lane. The shark cannot tell the difference between different skill levels.
• Humans are roughly 70% water. Try to use that to your advantage somehow.
• Good form can be the difference between sinking, and being the next, even douchier, Ryan Lochte. Here is the formula for a perfect front crawl:
  1. Extend your main arm frontwise. Palm down with inosculated digits. The appendage containing your brain, mouth, and sense organs should be oriented orthogonally to your direction of motion. Pivot starboard (or anti-starboard, respectively) as you drag your main arm crosswise through the water.
  2. Repeat this action (mirror-reversed, of course) with your auxiliary arm.
  3. While performing Steps #1 & #2, pump your non-anterior appendages ventrally in a reiterant fashion. A good form mimics the elegant flap of a Sharp-tailed Grouse’s wing. To maximize efficiency, attempt to get the ratio somewhere around 5.67:1 kicks to arm cycles.
  4. Pull the dangling end to the left and then fold it back over itself to the right. Hold this fold, which will be the front loop of the completed tie, between your shirt’s collar points. Tighten by pulling on opposite sides and halves simultaneously. Repeat until the bow is the desired shape and tightness.
  5. When you complete your arm cycle, swivel your facial region in the direction of your auxiliary arm. Expand your diaphragm with your intercostal muscles to effect the intake of air.
  6. As you approach the far end of the pool, and prepare to flip-turn off the wall, think about all the mistakes you’ve made in your life. The friends you should have been kinder to, the elderly relatives you should have visited more often, the times you didn’t work as hard as you should have. If you’ve ever gotten embarrassingly drunk and thrown up on yourself, concentrate on that memory. It will ease the extreme discomfort of water rushing into your sinuses as you forget to strongly exhale during your underwater somersault. With your main and auxiliary arms at your side, tip forward around your proximal axis and use the memory of your romantic failures in high school to ignore the blinding pain of bashing your ankles into the edge of the pool during the flip. After pushing off, extend your distal appendages axially in both directions and rotate 180 degrees as you think about when you spilled red wine on your favorite shirt. Man, you really loved that shirt.