What are the Benefits of Swimming?

Swimming offers a variety of benefits to health and wellbeing, ranging from weight loss to relief from chronic conditions. An excellent all-round exercise, it’s available to everyone from the very young to the very old and comes with a reduced risk of injury compared to other forms of cardio.  

With experts recommending that adults aged 19 to 64 complete at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise per week, swimming is a great way to meet your weekly workout targets. 

What’s more, if you’re someone who loves swimming, it won’t even feel like a workout at all!

If you’re interested in the benefits of swimming and are considering incorporating it into your exercise regime, here are 7 reasons to jump in the pool today.

The Benefits of Swimming

1. It provides a full body workout

Swimming works your heart, your lungs, and all your body’s major muscle groups, including underworked muscles that are more difficult to target (such as your deltoids). Because the extra resistance of the water forces your muscles to work harder, it can lead to significant improvements in muscle definition, strength, and flexibility. This means that swimming can serve as cardio and strength training simultaneously, ensuring you don’t need to put extra thought into targeting specific body areas for workouts.

2. It’s great for weight loss

Weight loss is a significant benefit of swimming. While the number of calories you’ll burn varies depending on the stroke you’re performing (with butterfly being the most effective), simpler strokes such as front crawl still hold their own. 

Some studies suggest that swimming has the edge over other exercises when it comes to fat-burn. For example, the Journal of Exercise Rehabilitation found that women who swam three times a week experienced a greater reduction in fat-loss around their waists and hips compared to women who walked three times a week.

3. It helps prevent and rehabilitate injuries

Since swimming allows you to increase your heart rate without stressing your body, it gives you all the benefits of regular exercise while minimising the risk of side effects. Most notably, unlike some other popular forms of cardio such as jogging, swimming is a low impact exercise that doesn’t put pressure on your joints. This means that it comes with a low risk of injury, as well as the ability to aid recovery for existing conditions. 

4. It’s good for medical conditions including asthma, arthritis, and MS

The benefits of swimming extend beyond weight loss and fitness to incorporate broader aspects of health and wellbeing. 

For example, some asthma sufferers have found that the warm and humid environment of a swimming pool is good for their condition. For balance, though, it’s worth noting that others have found that chlorine can make their symptoms flare up. Nevertheless, the increased lung capacity that accompanies regular swimming can also lead to a reduction in symptoms, as well as an improvement in the overall condition of your lungs.

Swimming is a great exercise for anyone suffering from weakness or restricted movement in their limbs, joints, or muscles. With the buoyancy of the water reducing strain on the body, individuals suffering from MS and arthritis often find that swimming provides a noticeable reduction in pain and stiffness. 

5. It improves mental as well as physical health

Like other forms of exercise, swimming encourages your body to release endorphins, a naturally produced hormone that boosts happiness and reduces stress. A 2018 YouGov poll commissioned by Swim England found that 1.4 million adults in Britain believe swimming has reduced the symptoms of their anxiety and depression. Whether it’s alleviating the effects of serious conditions or simply improving our mood, it’s clear that time in the water can have a rejuvenating effect on mental health.

6. It increases energy and improves sleep

Because swimming improves your metabolism, it can provide you with increased energy levels in day-to-day life. There’s also a significant link between swimming and restful sleep. This is due to a combination of tiredness from the exercise and a reduction in causes of insomnia, such as stress and anxiety.

7. It’s accessible and suitable for all

It doesn’t matter what your fitness level is; swimming is suitable for people of all ages and abilities. Whether you’re swimming lengths at speed, taking your time in the slow lane, or even doing a pool-based exercise such as aquafit, swimming is an accessible and inexpensive form of exercise that suits a wide variety of needs. 

It’s also safe during pregnancy, as long as you follow the necessary precautions and are careful not to push yourself too hard.

If you’re a confident and competent swimmer, you don’t even need to limit yourself to the pool. Open water swimming in rivers, lakes, and the sea can help freshen up your regime, although you’ll need to take safety precautions including checking weather conditions, water quality and temperature, and currents or tides.

START ACHIEVING THE HEALTH BENEFITS OF SWIMMING TODAY

Swimming offers a unique set of benefits that can’t be achieved through any other form of exercise.

If you want something that works your entire body, helps ease joint and muscle pain, and combines the benefits of cardio and strength training, why not take up swimming today? 

Even with these benefits, swimming will always be at its most effective when combined with other approaches to weight loss, exercise, and dieting.