will swimming get me in shape

Swimming is great cardio.

 

Swimming is terrific exercise, as it tends to use a ton of your muscles.

 

Swimming is an amazing workout and will improve your fitness on all sorts of levels. Whether or not it will help you reach your particular goal for muscle growth is another question.

I'd look at pictures of Olympic swimmers and ask if that's the look you're going for. If you want more muscle than that, I would definitely suggest weight training. Nothing will build muscle faster than that.

 

I definitely gained a little muscle during my biggest swimming kick. I lost more fat than anything. If by "toned" you mean losing fat and building your endurance, swimming for an hour 6 days a week is going to do that for sure. But I agree with SuperFan that weight training is best if muscle is what you're after. A couple of months ago, I started weight training 5 to 6 days a week with a little bit of swimming and running for extra cardio and I'm already in the best shape I've been in since high school.

 

Honestly, as long as you're not doing steroids, it's really hard to get "too big". Plus, building muscle mass takes time. You can always stop whenever you want. It's not like you'll wake up one day looking like the Hulk, and go "oh crap, I got too big!" lol

 

OH YEAH TO TAKE IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL IF YOUR GYM HAS SWIM AREOBICS TRY A FEW CLASSES THE ENERGY IS AMAZING!