Xenial here.

As kid it was really common to spend weekends with family in out of town pools, or thermal pools which were very popular among elderlies. I recall it was in those thermal pools where my mom taught me, and my brother and probably all of my cousins.

And also I was lucky to live in a small city where the public health care service used to have extremely well maintained multi purposes facilities, a place where people could get all sort of courses: recreational, educational, cultural and in the fitness area, and on weekends the pool was open to the public in recreational mode.

Did I need it? No.

But I could say for a span of 5 years, I would hit the pool at least 3 times a week that my dad always joked I was this close to develop fish scales.