Swimming laps does a lot to your body, it is fun for young and old and it keeps your joints flexible without exerting a lot of force on them. It’s not surprising that many athletes use swimming to recover after an injury: and you don’t need any fancy equipment for it, just you and a big blue bath with lifeguard training.
What exactly is so beneficial about swimming laps in the water? Take a deep breath and dive into the five benefits of swimming.
1 : You train your muscles and get stronger
Swimmers build muscle strength all over their bodies. That’s not surprising, because you need everything to stay above water. While runners mainly work on muscle mass in their legs, as a swimmer you need many more muscle groups to stay afloat. The legs kick, the arms make a pulling movement through the water. The back rotates, and the abdomen tightens to engage the legs and stabilize your core. Swimming is a true total body workout.
2 :Swimming helps you build bone mass
For years, the idea that swimming would improve your bone mass was dismissed by scientists. Only strength exercises would contribute to this. But not according to this research, published in the Journal of Applied Physiology. Three groups of rats were tested: one group ran, the other swam and the third group did nothing. The running group showed the highest increase in bone mass density, but the swimming group also developed an advantage over the group that did nothing.
3 : Swimming burns a lot of calories
There are not many sports that burn as many calories as swimming. Of course it depends a bit on the intensity of your strokes, but you can burn as many or even more calories in the pool as running on the treadmill (or through the polder). For ten minutes of swimming, you burn 60 calories with the front crawl, 80 calories with the backstroke, 100 calories with freestyle and 150 calories with the butterfly stroke.
4 : Swimming helps against stress and depression
Anyone who regularly sports knows: if you work up a sweat every now and then, you become a happier person. But you don’t just produce happy hormones with swimming: it also gives you a relaxed and relaxed feeling, an experience that you can also have in a yoga class. Combine this with even, deep breathing and stretching your body with each stroke, and you can release all the stress you’ve built up into the water. Swimming can also have a meditative effect on your mind, which reduces tension and reduces the risk of depression.
5 : You can also go into the water with injuries
If you are recovering from injury, if you have a disability, or if you suffer from asthma or arthritis, swimming is an ideal exercise. Swimming can actually reduce your pain. And because the pool is a humid environment, it is ideal for people with asthma. In addition, swimming increases your lung capacity, which can also help you gain more control over your breathing.