Swimming exercise is a great relaxing and healthy activity and for many it is a form of exercise. Swimming is one of the most popular forms of aerobic exercise and an excellent activity for anyone who wishes to get fit and stay active.
Swimming recruits all the major muscle groups, including the shoulders, back abdominals, legs, hips, and glutes. Regular swimming builds endurance, muscle strength and cardiovascular fitness. It can serve as a cross-training element to your regular swim workouts. Swimming exercise with increasing effort gradually increases your heart rate and stimulates your muscle activity.
The density of the human body is approximately similar to that of water. The body is supported by the water and less stress is therefore placed on joints and bones. Since the buoyancy of the water protects the joints, exercise is a particularly good choice for people who are overweight or who are prevented from taking part in other activities because of injuries or other physical limitations. Therefore, swimming is frequently used as an fitness exercise in rehabilitation after injuries or for the disabled.
For most adults, the upper body is the weakest part of the body. In swimming you can get an upper-body workout and a lower-body workout, unlike running or biking or other activities like tennis, where you get a good swimming workout for just the legs. In addition, as with most water aerobic exercises it is believed to reduce the harmful effects of stress.
Swimming exercise helps you shape your body. It is effective to burn fat more effectively than the other exercises as the resistance in the water is a lot more than on the ground and a swimmer has to face tremendous pressure while swimming. That is the reason why a short span of swimming exercise can give the benefit of losing more fat as compared to the long term ground exercise.
Swimming exercise helps pregnant women strengthen their abdominal and shoulder areas. It reduces the stress and stiffness because of carrying a baby. It improves blood circulation and keeps a good and balanced blood flow throughout the body.
Swimming exercise consumes a large amount of calories. According to the latest studies a half an hour of swimming exercise can burn more than 1100 calories. So it can be considered as an ideal exercise for weight loss!
People who go and dip in the water will actually enjoy several benefits of swimming physically, psychologically, emotionally, and socially. Physically, it gives a whole body conditioning, without giving any painful after effects of the exercises like strained muscles or overworked bones and joints or injuries. Psychologically, it gives the mind some moments of peace and calmness by just concentrating on the water and the strokes. Emotionally, it allows you to vent your anger, stress, or frustration by shouting underwater or punching and kicking the water, thus not hurting anyone. Socially, swimming serves as bonding times with family and friends or a time to meet new people.
