Fitness & Equipment Guides > The Benefits of Swimming to Your Health & Fitness

The Benefits of Swimming to Your Health & Fitness

17th Oct 19

Swimming is one of the most natural types of exercise on the planet. It’s good, healthy, and fun, and it’s something that’s common to most of the world. It’s an incredibly effective, low-impact, full-body workout, and generally, there are way more benefits to swimming than most people realise. We’re here to look at the biggies and help you see what is so great about it.


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Practicality

We’ll start with a more general insight into swimming rather than the physical benefits. Swimming is one of many types of exercise that can be done for a whole range of reasons, both in and out of fitness. From family days out at water parks or indoor swimming areas with children’s facilities to sports and competitive swimming events, you can tailor your workout to suit your exact needs. This will factor in your capabilities and lifestyle, such as having children or being a beginner swimmer.

Customisable

woman with swimming floats at the pool

Diving into how swimming is great for pretty much everyone, it’s a good time to talk about how practically anyone can get into it. With access to some water, you can give it a try at just about any age. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just starting out, it’s an awesome workout that you can tailor to suit you personally. Even if you aren’t particularly confident in the water, there are classes and groups to get you started, as well as floats and aids to help you in the water on your own. You can exercise in your own way.

Safe & Injury Friendly

According to swimming.org, studies have shown that exercising in water takes 90% of the usual weight away from the joints because of the water buoyancy. Unlike most cardio or weight training, swimming is much more accessible to people of different health and fitness levels. This means that children, the elderly and even pregnant women can swim safely! It’s also a great resource for people who have injuries or disabilities, making exercising more difficult. On top of that, as we said above, you can use devices and apparatus in the water to make things easier too. It’s an incredible way to exercise.

Accessible

Swimming is generally quite an accessible exercise as well as a practical one. Most residential areas will have some kind of swimming facility nearby, and they rarely cost too much money. Some even offer monthly or annual subscription services that include access to gyms or sports facilities. This can often make swimming the cheapest possible way to exercise other than running or using equipment you already own and one of the more effective.

The Exercise Itself

Some of the perks about the activity and how you can use it, but what about the exercise itself? As we said, it’s an awesome way to exercise, after all, and that’s not something you can forget about. Let’s break it down.

Full Body Workout

man at the swimming pool

Swimming is a great full-body workout, hitting literally every muscle group you have in order to make sure you’re keeping afloat and moving in the right direction. This means that it is a really effective strength training workout, as well as cardio. The contractions of your body are heavy and constant while you’re swimming. As strength improves, your swimming performance will do as well, resulting in you being able to swim further, faster, and even for a longer duration. It just keeps getting better.

On top of that, your strength will transfer out of the pool as well. That makes it a good exercise for increasing functional strength as well as specialised. Not only will you get stronger, but you see the cardiovascular benefits too. You’ll gain more stamina, increase your lung functionality, and improve your heart health. (What can’t this exercise offer you?)

Variation

man doing butterfly stroke

As an exercise itself, it has even more variation. The massive amount of stroke and technique variation means that you can also target and work harder on particular areas, such as your back or chest. That’s perfect for keeping your workouts varied and exciting so that it doesn’t feel repetitive, especially when you’re competing against yourself. It’s incredible for keeping up the motivation.

Once you’ve realised the potential of swimming and can use it for your personal benefit, it becomes easier to tailor your exercise to your personal needs. Swimming allows the use of apparatus to make sure that you can still use it to hit certain muscle groups that you might have trouble hitting otherwise, no matter what your current skill or fitness level is. This means that swimming is great for recovering from injury, for example. Even with an active rest day, swimming has its potential and can help you keep in great shape.

There Are Classes

Swimming is one of the most diverse exercises in terms of available help too. You can do a massive range of exercises in the pool so that your workout is successful and you remain motivated. The most popular of these is aqua aerobics, which is good because of the low impact and water resistance. This makes the exercise as effective and efficient as possible without the high intensity or risk of injury.

The other side of the coin comes from other water activities that are out there too. We don’t mean things like extreme water sports, but even weight training in water is growing in popularity. The ease of stress on your joints makes it a great way to do pretty much everything.

Offers Endless Possibilities

man swimming under water

Combining all of the points we mentioned means that swimming could really help you achieve your goals. It can help you get a workout when you usually couldn’t; it could add variation; it could even just be an excuse to exercise with your kids or help your parents get out of the house more.

Once you become more comfortable and happy with swimming as your routine, possibilities arise to take it to a competitive level or transfer your skills! You can look into diving or other water-based sports, so it’s more than advisable to try it out for yourself.


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Before beginning any exercise or nutrition program, consult your physician, doctor or other professional. This is especially important for individuals over the age of 35 or persons with pre-existing health problems. Exercise.co.uk assumes no responsibility for personal injury or property damage sustained using our advice.

If you experience dizziness, nausea, chest pain, or any other abnormal symptoms, stop the workout at once and consult a physician or doctor immediately.

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