Swimming pool

[Roger Van Zant]

Man, these stupid rules. I’m pretty curious how places that are popular with tourists (especially onsens) are going to handle the tattoo rules. Not to mention I’m seeing more and more younger Japanese people walking around with visible tattoos.

You don’t need to worry about tattoos at onsen in Japan. Simply use a private “family” onsen, called a 家族風呂 in Japanese. Much nicer and more relaxing anyways, compared to sitting around with a bunch of naked old dudes eyeballing you.

[TokyoBoglehead]

Slightly off topic (just in case you end up not being able to swim), you said:

>>Making the muscles stronger and losing same body fat sounded like a good idea.

FWIW - Swimming is no good for making muscles stronger and you'd have to do an awful lot of it in order to lose body fat.

For muscle building, you need weights (gym); and cycling is good for building certain leg muscles.
For losing fat you need an activity that requires carrying your full body weight (e.g., walking (fast if possible); jogging/running, climbing steps, etc.).
But with cycling and especially swimming, you're not carrying your full body weight, so it takes much longer to burn calories.

Virtual none of this information is correct. I don't want to be rude, but I suggest researching some of these claims.

Swimming is tremendously good exercise, and losing weight is mostly about CICO.

[gaijin86]

OK, I edited my post.

[captainspoke]

I don't swim these days, but when I was working, school had a nice pool. Especially winter, I'd be there almost every day--besides laps, good showers, soap/shampoo and towels supplied, could shave easily, and so on. There was also a weight room, but I rarely used it.

It's just an impression, so not really sure (I've never worked with weights/machines), but one way I thought of swimming was as yoga-in-the-water. Full body, but maybe with a little more of a resistance in some ways. (I swam crawl, with webbed gloves, no kicking and a float between my legs.)

[JapHans]

Thanks all for the comments.

I guess it is what it is, and unless I want to travel to a high-end pool in Tokyo or go through laser tattoo removal, I will have to do with other types of exercise….

Japan is a nice country to leave in, but the bureaucracy and conservatism can be a real pain in the behind.

Hans