Whether you're heading abroad or sticking around in the UK in hope of another summer of sun (fingers crossed), the summer holidays are just around the corner. To make sure that you are prepped and ready for a busy summer we have put together a selection

Have you had a Christmas indoors? Are you looking to get out and get your kids trying something new this New Year? Well our FREE Oceans of Fun events are back and could be coming to a Leisure Centre near you. We are continuing to share our love of the water and show kids

We all know that Christmas is the perfect time for that warm glass of Mulled
Wine or the cheeky couple of Chocolates! Here at Zoggs we believe that instead of feeling guilty, your favourite festive treats create the perfect excuse to jump in this Christmas!

If you’re planning to get fit in the water this year, you’re in luck! We've pulled together a four week swim workout plan to help you set and achieve your goals, whilst having fun and learning valuable new skills during your new year swim journey!

Why start swimming in 2016

Swimming is a sport that you can do all year round and feel great doing! With the added bonus of being a low impact, whole body workout, swimming is a great way to get fit in 2016.

Setting Goals

Before you start work out, you first need to figure out what you want to achieve, whether that is feeling confident in the water or swimming the length of the channel - set your goal as a starting point!

Commitment is the key to achieving your goals, and you want to be able to commit to a program that is realistic for a short period of time, that has achievable goals. For example, committing to swimming for 1 hr a week for 4 weeks will make a big change to your fitness levels and is achievable to fit in with a busy lifestyle. Remember, the key to sticking to your goal is consistency and repetition.

Ensure your program also allows for flexibility. Our lives change week to week but the one absolute key point is knowing that you will make time to go to the pool at some point each week to look after your body.

Four Week Swim Plan

Week 1: Building up your stamina

During week 1, start with a very basic workout focusing purely on swimming a smooth long stroke and building up your stamina.

Swimming in sets of two is a great starting point - try swimming 2 lengths with a 30 second break, and repeat.

You can mix up the strokes if you wish, the first week of the plan is not about pushing to a high intensity but sustaining the ability to breathe a smooth rhythmical breath for every lap that is swum.

Week 2: Legs

In week 2, try bringing a focus area such as the legs. Begin your workout with a nice and easy warm up with any stroke at a slow pace for around 2 / 3 lengths.

Once warmed up, it's time to focus on the legs. Move onto kicking only with a kickboard to isolate the legs, aiming to complete 4 lengths using the board and resting for 30 seconds in between each length.

Once you have completed four lengths using the kickboard, go back to swimming a full stroke for 3 laps then rest. Repeat this 2 times.

Top tip: For the greatest body workout, try to kick with your legs under the water and make minimal splashes as you swim! Remember this is not about getting out of the pool and feeling exhausted, but working your body and being able to breathe at the same time.

Week 3: Arms

This week now the focus becomes on arms. Again start with a gentle warm up, starting off where we left from in week 2, swimming 3 laps then rest then repeat 3 times.

Once warm, grab a pull buoy and swim one length just using your arms. Ensure that your stroke is smooth, the more splashes you make the harder and less efficient it becomes.

Once you have done this for 4 laps stopping at each end, begin 4 laps of the full stroke with no pull buoy. If at all you are finding that you lose your breathing rhythm or start to feel tight in your chest, stop and rest to get your breath back.

Week 4: Bringing Everything Together

During the final week of your programme, it's all about bringing everything together and pushing your body a little further.

Begin with a warm up for up to 10 minutes. The challenge here can be how many lengths can you swim in this amount of time, not as fast as you can as remember it is a warm up.

Then grab a kickboard - for this exercise you are going to kick for one length slowly, 30 second rest, followed by a second length as fast as you can pushing your body to its limit. Repeat this circuit 3 times.

Now, try an additional 2 lengths nice and slowly, trying not to make any splashes (it's much harder than it sounds). Follow these lengths by grabbing a pull buoy and swimming 2 lengths just using your arms to build up your strength - Rep

After delivering all those presents, Father Christmas likes to take a refreshing dip in the North Pool (see what we did there?!), and you can enjoy a festive swim too at any of these 10 fun Christmas and New Year swim events in the UK:

On Christmas

We were so pleased to see that our Pull

The Aspire Channel Swim is back! Aspire is a national charity offering practical support for those with spinal cord injuries. The Aspire Channel Swim is now in its 16th year and is running from 14th September - 7th December, where swimmers will complete 22 miles within 12 weeks!

Here are ten great reasons to take on the challenge:

1. Swimming is a great fitness choice as it’s a low-impact workout for the whole body. Because it’s easy on your joints, it is perfect for just about everyone, especially those who have physical limitations or who find other forms of exercise painful.

2. Resistance training can help build strong muscles and reduce body fat. As water is denser than air, every movement made in water is against a greater resistance.

3. Swimming enables you to work the whole body at the same time unlike most gym equipment that only works on isolated muscle groups.

We had an exhausting but exhilarating swimming class this week learning butterfly. It’s not a stroke we touch upon too frequently, and ordinarily it’s just a small element of a class, but this week, it was all about the fly. At the beginning of the class I was a little bit nervous, but excited too. It’s one of those strokes that is scary but fun at the same time. When done correctly it looks amazing, almost like the swimmer is flying through the water, probably where it got its name!

The class was very tiring, butterfly is an aerobic stroke and also not one that we were used to swimming, so it did feel like a harder class than usual. We did a series of drills using fins that included dolphin kick, dolphin kick with breathing timed to the kick and one-arm pull - this is not a typo - probably the hardest drill of them all! And then finally, onto full stroke with fins before going fin-free.

The majority of the class was taken up by the drills, but we did move onto fin-free full stroke towards the end of the class. Previously, I’ve only managed to do three quarters of a length of full stroke without fins, so I was really delighted to manage two lengths, albeit with a bit of a breather in-between!

There were a few tips that I picked up during the class which I think are worth sharing with those of you that are learning butterfly as a beginner:

Relax
Easier said than done, but it really does help. If you can relax, you will find that the stroke will almost fall into a natural rhythm.

We were approached about a remarkable little girl called Rosanna Ogden and we just had to share her story! Rosanna is 5 years old, and with a little help from friends and loved ones, is organising a sponsored swim for a UK heart charity.

Rosanna was born with a rare type of tumour called Rhabdomyoma and at just 6 weeks old she underwent heart surgery. We asked Rosanna a few questions about her sponsored swim.

So, why do you love swimming?
Rosanna: It makes me super fast and because it makes me feel happy.

Why do you think more people should swim?
Rosanna: Everyone should be able to swim by themselves so they can play in the water.

How do you feel when you’re swimming?
Rosanna: Happy!!

Are you excited for the sponsored swim? How far will you be swimming?
Rosanna: Yes! I am so so so excited. I am swimming one mile.

Are any of your friends doing the swim with you?
Rosanna: Yes, from my class, they are coming to support me.

What made you want to raise money for charity?
Rosanna: I want to raise it to help other people.

Do you see yourself swimming lots in the future?
Rosanna: