Swimming is the best workout you can continue for a lifetime. You get all the benefits of an aerobic workout without any kind of damaging impact on your joints. Moreover, you don’t require any equipment to do it just you and water. Swimming is called a perfect exercise and keeps you fit and healthy. It’s, in fact, a low-impact activity that has many physical and mental health benefits.
Athletes do swimming to stay strong and keep fit when recovering from injury. Experts recommend adults to get 150 minutes of moderate activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity each week. You can work your entire body and cardiovascular system. The fun exercise has numerous benefits so that you can incorporate it into your routine. We have discussed here the 6 amazing health benefits of swimming.
1. Helps in improving muscle definition and strength
Swimming helps strengthen muscles throughout the entire body. Runners see muscle build only in their legs while swimmers utilize more muscle groups to move through the water. Water is 12 times denser than air, so while swimming you have to fight the water resistance. You kick with your legs and the arms are pulled. As your back reaches and rotates, the stomach tightens to power the legs and stabilize the core. This makes swimming one of the best aerobic exercises giving you a total body workout. The entire body benefits from the resistance and you don’t have to worry about counting or equalizing repetitions.
2. Appropriate for people with injuries, arthritis and other conditions
Swimming is found safe exercise option for people with arthritis, injury, disability and other issues that make high-impact exercises difficult. Swimming can even help reduce pain or improve recovery from an injury. People with osteoarthritis reported significant reductions in joint pain and stiffness and experienced less physical limitations after engaging in activities like swimming and cycling. Swimming seems to have many of the same benefits as frequently prescribed land exercises.
3. Can improve exercise-induced asthma
Swimming can improve the overall condition of the lungs. It increases the overall lung-volume and teaches good breathing techniques. Swimming is a great exercise for people with asthma because of the humid environment of indoor pools. The breathing exercises associated with the sport, like holding the breath, helps in expanding lung capacity and gain control over-breathing.
However, some studies suggest that swimming may increase risk of asthma because of the chemicals used to treat pools. So talk to the doctor about the potential risks of swimming if you have asthma, and, if possible, look for a pool that uses saltwater instead of chlorine.
4. Helps you stay flexible
Flexibility is the ability to move the joints to their full range. While swimming you reach, stretch, twist and pull your way through the water. The ankles become fins and are stretched with each kick as you push off against the liquid pressure. This repetitive stretching found in various strokes helps with flexibility. If you swim every day, your whole body flexibility will improve which in turn will reduce the joint pain.
5. Lowers stress and depression
Swimming has a similar relaxation response as you feel in yoga. Swimming constantly stretches the body and when you combine this with the deep rhythmic breathing, you experience a relaxation rush. It calms you down and is meditative. The sound of your breathing and the water rushing by helps you focus inward and drown out all other distractions. This naturally lowers stress and depression.
6. Aids in weight loss
Swimming is a great exercise to burn calories and is as efficient as running on the treadmill. It can help you burn equal or greater calories than running depending on the stroke you chose and your intensity. Like for 10 minutes of swimming, one can easily burn 60 calories with the breaststroke, 80 calories with the backstroke, 100 calories with the freestyle, and an impressive 150 with the butterfly stroke. If you run for 10-minute mile, you can burn around 100 calories. A strong 30-min butterfly speed session can help you burn 150 more calories than running a 5K in the same time frame. As you burn more calories, more fat gets mobilized. So you start losing the fat mass in your body.
Article contributed by Hari babu from GoFameUs.com!
