The Health Benefits of Swimming

Discover the health benefits of swimming! Swimming is often described as one of the best sports for the body, but what exactly are those benefits?

Whole body workout

The first benefit of swimming is that it is a whole body workout. Indeed, to swim for any sizable amount of time, you need to engage all the limbs or you risk to be quickly exhausted. As a consequence, all the muscles in your body are mobilized during a typical swim workout.

You will get an even better workout if you use several swimming strokes because you will mobilize the muscles in several different ways.

Finally, as swimming engages all limbs in different kinds of motions, it promotes flexibility of the joints.

Cardiovascular exercise

The health benefits of swimming don't stop there. Swimming is an endurance sport, and as such one of the best cardiovascular exercises. Swimming exercise reduces your blood pressure (www.highbloodpressureinfo.org), strengthens your heart and improves your aerobic capacity.

Low-impact exercise

When you swim, your body is supported by the water. The water has a much greater density than air, and this limits the speed at which you can move in the water. These factors make swimming one of the best low-impact exercises than can even be practiced when other forms of exercise aren't possible:

• it can be practiced safely by elderly people
• swimming can be practiced during the pregnancy
• it can be practiced as an alternative exercise for injured athletes
• it can be practiced by overweight people

As the water resistance increases with speed, every swimmer can easily dose the intensity at which he wants to work out.

Swimming has a lot of health benefits, for people of all ages

Dry-land alternative

Swimming is also an excellent alternative to dry-land exercise. For example, it can practiced in the summer when it is too hot outside to work out. It can also be an welcome alternative to bored or injured runners.

Losing weight and weight control

There are other health benefits of swimming. As an endurance sport, swimming allows you to lose or control your weight. It burns about three calories per mile per pound of body weight. To be effective for weight control, you need to swim at least two or three times a week for at least half an hour.

However, make sure that you do swim continuously at the pool. Stopping every five minutes to have a chat with your lane partners won't cut it! ;-)

If you are overweight, swimming is the best way to lose weight as you will be able to work out safely without putting too much stress on your joints.

Relieve body pain

Swimming is also an excellent sport that can relieve certain types of aches:

1. Swimming is often prescribed to patients that experience back problems and pain. Swimming backstroke is an excellent exercise to loosen up and strengthen the back.
2. Swimming is also an excellent exercise for people that suffer from arthritis because of the support and soft resistance of the water.

Swimming injuries

The heath benefits of swimming are many. As swimming is a low-impact exercise, you would think that there aren't any downsides to practicing this sport.

This isn't the case however. Even if swimming is a low-impact exercise, there is a possibility to develop certain swimming injuries, so be aware of them!

Conclusion

We have seen that swimming has a lot of benefits for the body. But it doesn't stop there! There are also psychological benefits of swimming. Check them out!