9 reasons why you should swim regularly

What do you think is the best workout? Strength/resistance training? HIIT? Running? Soccer? Very few of you will say swimming at this point. Yet swimming is a perfect combination of endurance and resistance training. To avoid sinking, your arms, legs, shoulders, hips and upper body have to work hard, and today we want to show you the benefits of swimming for your health and how swimming can also help you with other sports.

1. swimming is great for building muscle and losing fat

Resistance training is great for building muscle. Endurance sports are great for burning calories. Swimming is a perfect combination of the two. Swimming at a moderate pace burns around 500 calories per hour. If you step on the gas, you can even burn around 700 calories per hour. Because water is almost 800 times denser than air, every arm and leg movement is like a mini resistance workout. Swimming therefore promotes muscle building, especially lean muscle building. These muscles are like a little firework for your metabolism, which means that you continue to burn calories long after you’ve dried off.

 

2. swimming is great for your lung function

With your face down, oxygen becomes a luxury good. Just as you need to learn how to budget your money, your body needs to learn how to use oxygen more effectively. When you swim, your body learns to take in more air with each breath and expel more carbon dioxide with each exhale. According to a study in the Indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology, swimmers have a better breathing volume compared to runners. This leads to a lower resting heart rate, lower blood pressure and can improve your endurance. Which brings us to the next point …

 

3. swimming works wonders for your endurance

Your body’s ability to use oxygen more effectively will also transfer to your endurance training. Among other things, you can expect your running times to improve. According to a study in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, swimmers who learned a controlled breathing technique (two breaths per pool length) improved their running time by 6 percent. And that was after just 12 swimming sessions. Apart from the benefits for breathing, swimming also trains the buttock and thigh muscles as well as the core muscles, which provide propulsion in many endurance sports.

 

4. swimming is suitable for everyone

Whether you need to slow down due to injury, you’re pregnant, your old bones or knee joints are bothering you or you’re preparing for the next Ironman, swimming is incredibly versatile and low-impact and therefore suitable for everyone (ok, you should fulfill one condition – you should know how to swim).

 

5. swimming is great against stress

Any kind of exercise promotes the release of endorphins, which has a positive effect on your stress levels. The great thing about swimming is that the water reduces the sensory information your body is bombarded with on a daily basis. As a result, your body is overwhelmed by a wave of calm. For example, researchers have found that regular floating – a relaxation technique where you float in a tank of salt water – can reduce chronic stress by reducing sensory information in a similar way to swimming. No wonder I feel so relaxed and at ease in the bath.

 

6. swimming is joint-friendly

There is almost no better workout than swimming if you are recovering from an injury and want to get back into training slowly. Swimming is one of the best low-impact workouts and is suitable, for example, after a knee injury or if you suffer from arthritis. Even if you are not injured, you should give your joints a regular break. If you find this difficult as a workout addict, it’s worth taking a dip in the water – your joints will thank you.

 

7. swimming keeps you young

According to researchers at Indiana University, swimmers are biologically 20 years younger than what’s on their driver’s license. Swimming has a positive effect on blood pressure, cholesterol levels, heart health, the central nervous system, cognitive abilities and blood chemistry. You don’t have to jump into a fountain of youth, a normal pool will do.

 

8. swimming trains otherwise often neglected muscles

While men like to train their arms, most women concentrate on their stomach, legs and bottom. Even in everyday life, the arm and back muscles such as deltoids, lats and traps are not used enough in most cases. Swimming trains almost all muscles and the fact that swimming requires a good amount of balance means that the deep muscles in the torso and lower back, for example, which are often neglected in the female fraction, are also trained.

 

9. swimming makes you smart

According to a study in the Journal of Physiology, blood flow to the brain is increased by 14 percent when you are underwater up to heart level. Researchers assume that the water pressure on the chest cavity is responsible for this. However, scientists are still investigating whether water-based workouts actually increase blood flow to the brain more than training sessions on land. Nevertheless, it can’t hurt to swim a few laps before a strenuous day at work or an exam. The least you’ll achieve is a cool head.

 

You should bear this in mind when you jump into the water:

Most swimming novices jump into the water full of expectation and think that they can swim for half an hour without any problems. Four minutes later, they are hanging on the edge of the pool, gasping. This is because training in water is a completely new challenge for your cardiovascular system and your muscles. Your lungs also have to get used to it first. The key to an effective pool workout is to break it down into shorter intervals using different swim strokes and intensity levels. This not only makes the whole thing more interesting, but also more effective.

We hope you enjoy your next swim training session.

Your swim4u.ch team

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Guelle: https://www.ziva-fitness-nation.de