Everyone loves swimming, but did you ever consider exercising with the help of swimming? While swimming can be fun, not many people know why swimming is the perfect exercise.
Swimming uses many muscles and it engages your whole body while performing the activity. It’s a skill where you only need water and a swimsuit, so getting started is not very expensive. In return, swimming can benefit you and your body in so many different ways, so here’s how swimming makes the almost perfect exercise and why.
Why is Swimming is a Perfect Exercise?
Swimming is for some people a perfect exercise, while others find it to be the next best thing to a perfect exercise. Why?
There are many reasons and there are many more benefits than just building muscles and staying fit with the help of swimming. Instead, swimming can relieve stress, and help with weight loss since it’s a calorie-burning exercise, and doing the needed movements in the water can also help you become more flexible.
Did we mention that swimming is the calorie killer? It’s an exercise where you can burn as many calories as you can while running, but we find it to be a lot more interesting and fun way to exercise.
With the constant pressure during swimming, not only will you stay a lot more fit and even lose weight, but you’ll also boost heart health. Since it’s a full-body resistance type of training, swimming can easily be considered as a good cardiovascular exercise, since it brings many benefits to the table.
Even though swimming is a low-impact exercise, it works out the whole body. This way, you can build muscles while relieving pressure on joints and still get a very efficient full-body workout.
Health Benefits of Swimming
Swimming is a very fun activity, but it can be a very good sport and exercise. Earlier, we’ve mentioned why swimming is the perfect exercise and we’ll now mention additional health benefits you can expect if you stick to swimming.
The main reason why swimming is such a benefit to your health is because it can keep your heart rate high while taking the impact off the body. This way, you won’t have to put any additional pressure or weight on your body to achieve the needed resistance to increase your heart rate.
Working out this way can help you build endurance as if you were a runner, and burn as many calories at the same time. On top of that, muscle strength and cardiovascular fitness are two other health benefits of swimming.
Since swimming is referred to as a calorie burner, you can use it as a tool to lose weight since it combines the resistance needed with a perfect amount of activity so it counts as a cardio exercise too. This way, burning calories and losing weight is possible even without visiting the gym and lifting heavy weights.
As a result besides health benefits, you can expect a toned body, better strength, and better overall mind feeling.
How Much Time Should You Swim for Every Day?
To experience and achieve the earlier mentioned life and health benefits, swimming two to three times a week for about 15 to 20 minutes per session is a good start. As you see improvements in your health, you can still go 2 to 3 times a week but increase sessions for up to 30 minutes at a time.
However, one thing you shouldn’t do is start right away with higher-intensity swimming training sessions. This will reduce the recovery time that you will need to recover from muscle soreness and fatigue.
Is Swimming the Best Cardio Exercise?
Swimming is often compared to running, which is one of the best cardio exercises, but we believe that swimming is the best cardio exercise ever.
Even running and kickboxing can’t compete with all the benefits of swimming, and while running is very similar in health benefits, swimming has many more advantages. Elevation of the pressure on the joints is one of the best examples which you hardly get in any other cardio exercise.
Is Swimming Good for Your Muscles?
Yes, swimming is very good for your muscles. Since swimming acts and requires many muscle groups, it works those muscle groups, which helps you build more muscles and improve your endurance.
One thing not many people know is that swimming is among the top exercises that stimulate muscle growth. What’s also great is that you use almost every bigger muscle in your body. This means that you can equally work and grow some of the most important body muscles such as shoulders, abs, back, legs, and tricep muscles.
So if getting fit and even building muscles is your goal, doing it by swimming as your choice of exercise is a possibility.
How Good of a Workout is Swimming?
Swimming is a really good exercise that’s much better than running and it can even help you grow your muscles, so it’s even a great replacement for some exercise you’d do in your gym.
Not even other sports such as kickboxing can compare to swimming in terms of achievable benefits. Since you get to move your whole body while swimming, use many large muscle groups, and move yourself against the resistance of the water, you get a little bit of every type of exercise in one.
If you’re still not sure why is swimming a perfect exercise, checking out before and after photos of people who took on swimming as their main workout training routine will be a good motivation. Picking up swimming about 3 times a week can provide great results, and you won’t even notice it since it’s fun and you only have to do intense swimming sessions for about 20 to 30 minutes at a time.
Conclusion
Still not convinced why is swimming a perfect exercise? You should give it a try and see how your body feels after just one session.
While swimming is something we see as a fun activity we do at the pool, picking it up as a way to exercise your body is something that will set you apart from casual swimmers. Of course, this brings all of the earlier-mentioned benefits. So if you like swimming for fun, you can get the best of both and get healthier and even more toned as long as you stick to swimming.
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
Why is swimming better than gym?
While swimming, you elevate the pressure on the joints, which is the opposite of what working out in the gym does to your body. You also don’t need to use any weights and can achieve similar benefits by relying only on the resistance of the water.
Should I swim first or gym first?
Swimming before lifting in the gym gives you a chance to burn more calories, but if your goal is to gain more muscle mass, then hitting the gym and then swimming after the gym will provide a better weight workout to cardio ratio.
How does swimming change your body?
The biggest change lies in lung capacity, improved muscle strength, and better endurance. On top of that, you can burn many more calories, tone your body, and lose weight.
What happens when you swim every day?
You become stronger, improve your lung capacity, strengthen your muscles, are more resistant to the resistance of the water, can lose weight, tone your body, and reduce stress and anxiety, as well as improve your sleep.
Is swimming the best way to get fit?
Swimming isn’t the only or just one best way to get fit, but it’s one of the most interesting and fun ways to stay active, get fit, and lose weight to look better.
