David Cameron and Vladimir Putin swear by it.
But a growing number of swimmers across the Midlands are proving you don’t have to be a global leader to jump in at the deep end.
With the rising popularity of triathlons, open-water swimming is gaining a cult following in the 海角视频 and swimmers aren’t letting the landlocked Midlands get in their way of taking an open air dip.
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Rivers, lakes and quarries are all fair game for this hardy bunch and in Kingsbury 27-year-old Jenny Walker has opened her family’s lake to the public to meet the surge in demand.
The lake, just north of the village, opens its gates to visitors twice a week, with an evening dip costing £5 for as many laps of the 500-600m course as you can fit in.
Swimmers from near and far, most in their 30s and 40s, park up, don wetsuits (with a few hardy souls going swimsuit only), pay their entry and wade in.
The lake’s water is crystal clear but beyond the pebbly water’s edge swimmers who are used to following a line along a tiled pool floor will see only darkness below as the deepest areas sink more than 20ft beneath the surface.
Jenny’s family used to own building firm Walker Homes and when the lake was dug in the 1970s, as part of the construction of the M42, her grandad put in a successful bid for it.
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She says: “My grandpa absolutely loved being by the water but obviously the Midlands is completely landlocked, so he bought this to use as his own personal fishing lake.”
When he died last year Jenny’s dad and his three sisters took over, realising they couldn’t maintain the lake on its loss-making, six-day-a-week trout fishing operation.
But Jenny, who works in marketing and lives in Sutton, came up with the plan to turn it into a swimming lake while training to swim the Channel with her best friend, Faye.
The pair had signed up for a marathon but when Faye broke her wrist just before the run they set their sights on a new challenge and two summers ago took 19 hours, swimming in one-hour relays, to make their way from England to France.
“I’ve always swum in the lake,” she says, “but looking elsewhere, it became obvious that if you weren’t in a triathlon club there was really nowhere to swim.
“I got really irritated by that because it meant I was just coming down here all the time.”
She made contact with an organiser at USwim in Manchester (where swimmers take weekly dips in the former industrial docks at Salford Quays) who advised her on how to get started.
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And after doing a series of risk assessments, getting public liability insurance, and having the water tested to 1991 bathing regulations, she started a Midlands Open Water Swim Centre page on Facebook and found 70 swimmers waiting to take the plunge the first time she opened the gates.
She says: “I don’t want it to be just a place where people can come and train for an Ironman.
“Of course you can do that, but it’s horrible when all these serious athletic people are looking at you and it’s your first time. I want people to come, try it and enjoy it.
“With all the pressures of work and life at the moment, one lap around here is a lap of your own time and that’s how it benefits me the most – it helps me relax.”
David Cameron seems to feel the same way.
Taking a dip in Enniskillen’s Lough Erne before the G8 in June, he told reporters: “It certainly wakes you up and gets you going for a hard day chairing this summit.”
The PM, who is patron of his constituency’s Chipping Norton lido, has, according to his biographer, “a Labrador-like tendency to jump into water, no matter how cold”.
Neither Cameron nor fellow wild swimmer Vladimir Putin have yet to turn up at the Kingbury lake, but in its first four weeks it has amassed nearly 140 members and developed a core of loyal swimmers returning to each session.
Drying off on the lakeside, Birmingham resident Dianne Brabham, says: “At one point tonight I just floated on my back, looking up at the sky, and I saw some geese flying across.
“It’s just so relaxing and you don’t get that in a swimming pool.”
Jenny, who used to swim for Boldmere Swimming Club, agrees.
She says: “For me, it’s like the difference between running on a treadmill and running cross country.
“It’s beautiful out here, one day’s never the same as the next, and when you get in it literally takes your breath away.”
Midlands Open Water Swimming is open from 6.30pm on Tuesday and Thursday, with last entry at 8.30pm. For sat navs use postcode B78 2HZ and follow signs from the road.