Health Benefits of Swimming
Do you realize how significant the health benefits of swimming are?
There are few forms of exercise that are as beneficial as swimming. Whether you want to boost your muscle strength, lose weight, improve your flexibility, or calm your mind, swimming covers it all. If you’re still on the fence, here are seven good reasons to add swimming to your exercise routine.
Swimming Improves Heart Health
By swimming just once or twice a week, you’ll start to improve your cardiovascular fitness. Even a low-intensity swimming session will get your heart working a little harder. By strengthening your heart muscle, you’ll be able to pump blood more efficiently, increasing the delivery of oxygen to all the muscles and organs in your body. Ultimately, this will lower your blood pressure and reduce your risk of developing heart disease.
Swimming Increases Muscle Strength
Whatever your age, swimming is a great way to strengthen and tone your muscles. As water provides 12 times more resistance than air, your muscles have to work harder, which builds muscle capacity and endurance. What’s more, swimming works almost every muscle group in the body, including the arms, legs, abdominals, neck, shoulders, back, hips, and glutes.
Swimming Can Help You Lose Weight
If you need to lose weight, swimming is an excellent way to burn calories. Because your body burns more calories maintaining muscle than it does maintain fat, building your muscles will help you naturally burn more calories. For optimal results, you should also reduce your daily calorie intake from food.
Swimming Increases the Flexibility of Your Joints
Unlike other forms of exercise, swimming involves moving your muscles in a range of ways that help your joints and ligaments stay flexible. While swimming, your arms, shoulders, neck, back, hips, legs, and ankles all get a good workout in the pool, helping your joints remain supple and strong.
Swimming Has a Low Impact on Your Bones and Joints
Swimming is an ideal exercise for anyone with physical disabilities, mobility issues, or minor injuries. It’s a unique form of exercise because the water supports your body, meaning there’s less pressure on your joints and bones. When immersed in the water up to your neck, your body only carries about 10 percent of its weight.
If you have a lower back problem, swimming can be a great form of exercise. The water supports your body, takes the pressure off your spine, and helps you build muscle to potentially alleviate the symptoms of back pain.
Swimming is Good for Your Mental Health
At a basic level, swimming is a great way to escape from the stresses of everyday life. Swimming alone in a pool is a simple way to cut yourself off from the outside world and relax. Alternatively, swimming with a friend or two gives you the opportunity to socialize, unwind, and chat. You also open yourself up to the opportunity of making new friends if you swim in a public pool.
On a psychological level, the repetitive nature of swimming is an effective way to get yourself into a more mindful state. The controlled breathing and repetitive physical motions of swimming focus your mind in a similar way to meditation.
Finally, on a more physical level, swimming releases endorphins – your body’s “feel-good” hormones – which can help to alleviate pain, reduce anxiety, and boost your mood.
Swimming Can Help You Sleep Better
Do you suffer from poor sleep? A study by the National Sleep Foundation found a clear link between swimming regularly and an overall increase in sleep quality. The drop in body temperature you experience after swimming, coupled with the physical exertion of swimming can often lead to feelings of tiredness. What’s more, the relaxed mind you get from swimming can also contribute to better sleep.
Go Swimming, Get Healthy, and Live Longer
Swimming is one of the best activities you can do to improve your health, both physically and mentally, especially if you do it frequently. Regular swimming can even help you live longer due to its cardiovascular health benefits.
In a 32-year study of more than 40,000 men ages 20 to 90, swimmers were about 50 percent less likely to die during the study period than were walkers or runners. In another study of more than 80,000 British adults, participation in swimming was found to be associated with a 41 percent lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and a 28 percent lower risk of premature death from any cause.
So what are you waiting for? Add swimming to your daily or weekly routine and you can enjoy the remarkable health benefits for years to come.
Do You Want To Achieve All of The Health Benefits of Swimming?
Do you have a pool? There is no better way to achieve these significant health benefits of swimming than having your own pool. Time to swim becomes less of a hassle.
Can we help you decide on that beautiful new custom pool where you can take advantage of all of these great benefits? Get in touch with Precision Pools & Spas today to learn more.