Swimming for body fitness can improve your digestion and sleep patterns, lower your cholesterol levels, keep you well-toned. Swimming is one of the best cardiovascular, low impact and non-weight bearing physical activities which we have to participate in. Swimming is an ideal exercise for people who are obese and have not been active for long periods of time and are looking to start a good physical activity to lose weight.
Keep Time
It is essential to maintain a good time frame when you choose swimming for weight loss. When you first start a training routine/workout, it is essential to swim for a minimum sufficient period of time.
You should first start with 30 minutes of swimming and gradually increase your training sessions with small increments you feel comfortable with. For instance, you can start with the following routine:
- 1st week with 30 minutes
- 2nd week with 40 minutes
- Initially start with 3 times a week and increase gradual.
It is one of the good ideas to have an understanding as to how many laps/lengths you are able to swim in the training session and ensure that these totals increase as your fitness levels increase.
The benefits it offers in terms of calories burn depends on the stroke you swim. So here is a list of the best swimming strokes for weight loss:
Best swimming stroke for weight loss
Breaststroke
- Breaststroke is a burner in terms of calories.
- Average calorie burn: Around 200 calories within 30 minutes swimming.
- Breaststroke is a much better cardiovascular workout than the other strokes.
- It also helps strengthen your heart and lungs while toning thighs, upper back, triceps, hamstrings and lower legs.
- It helps to work and tone the chest muscles.
Backstroke
- Backstroke is the second calorie burner next to breaststroke.
- Average calorie burn: around 250 calories for 30 minutes swimming.
- Practice this by keeping yourself straight in the water. This will help you to lengthen your spine, helping you look taller and less hunched.
- Backstroke works to tone the stomach, legs, arms, shoulders and buttocks.
- It is great for improving the flexibility of your hips. Great for office bound workers.
Butterfly
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- It is definitely not for beginners, but Butterfly is at the top of the calorie burn list.
- Average calorie burn: around 450 calories for 30 minutes swimming
- It is the most effective all round stroke for toning and building muscles.
- It helps with upper body strength, toning your chest, stomach, arms (particularly your triceps) and your back muscles.
- It helps to increase your flexibility, suppleness and stretches out the body to improve posture.
Swimming can be a great way to lose weight as it offers the following
Good cardio
Swimming generally uses so many muscles in your body, your heart and lungs work hard to supply them with oxygen. This is why it provides a great cardio workout.
Good aerobics
Swimming is one of the best aerobic exercises, because all the strokes work with the major muscle groups, targeting every area of your body.
Good resistance training
Battling against the water to propel your body forward is a great way to increase strength, especially in the upper body. Swimming helps you to build muscle, which, in turn, burns fat. You will also burn an increased amount of calories even after the exercise is finished as your body uses energy to recover and rebuild muscle tissue.
Improves flexibility
When you perform swimming strokes, it can aid in improving the total flexibility of your muscles and joints. It also helps to pursue and excel at other activities like dancing as well as athletics, which requires a lot of flexibility.
If you want to lose weight, be stable, disciplined and Swim regularly. By going to swimming once a week is not going to help you beat the battle of the bulge. You should swim a minimum of three times a week. Try to find a training routine which works with your schedule.
