Swimming is fun activity beneficial for people of all ages. It is soothing to jump into pool of water when the weather is warm and splash around. But, do you know swimming has some amazing benefits for your mental and physical health. Let us look at some of the key benefits of swimming in today’s post below-
1. Get a complete body workout
Swimming need you to navigate your body through the water. There is great coordinated movement of the limbs with the body. It engages your muscle groups and you need a constant supply of oxygen to move across the water. The result is you get a total body workout helping you to-
- Boost your heart rate without adding stress on the body
- Improve strength
- Tone your muscles
- Improves fitness
- Aids weight management
- Improves sleep
2. Cardio-vascular strength
Swimming is an aerobic exercise that predominantly involves lungs, heart and the blood circulatory system in the body. It helps you to directly reduce the heart rate and blood pressure. It helps you to establish cardio strength.
3. Low impact exercise
Water is a good environment for providing your body with a low-impact exercise. It is ideal for individuals who need a workout that is friendly for your joints. Those recovering from a bodily injury or with health limitations due to age and obese people find this form of exercise in water to be easy and safe for their bodies. Moreover, those people with a joint injury or a bone disorder may find swimming to be a suitable exercise as the water buoyancy reduces stress on your weight bearing joints.
4. Ideal for the elderly disabled and pregnant women
Swimming can be practiced daily by people who are elderly and disabled. It helps them get the support and resistance needed for maintaining a good quality of life. It also boosts the health of post- menopausal women.
New mothers and pregnant women can also swim without fears to their health. Pregnancy involves weight gain and this induces both muscle and joint pain. Swimming helps you to alleviate pain as water supports your body weight. At the same, many pregnant women have mood swings and undergo a lot of stress. Swimming helps them to boost their mental health and mood. However, one should consult their doctor first before starting any new activity during pregnancy.
5. Weight Loss
If you find gym sessions to be boring and monotonous, you can always take to swimming for weight loss. Due to the involvement of muscle movement, it leads to an enhanced volume of cell activity needed to fulfil the increased energy levels that you need. However, the number of calories you burn depends upon your weight and how vigorously you can swim in the water.
6. Regulates blood sugar
A recent study has proved that if you swim in a pool at least thrice in a week, your glucose levels (blood sugar) are controlled and you have improved insulin sensitivity. It has also highlighted that swimming at a low volume with high intensity intermittent durations was better than swimming at a low intensity for an hour.
7. Helps you with asthma
Besides boosting cardia health, it boosts lung capacity and your ability to control breathing. Moreover, the environment of a clean well-maintained indoor pool often helps you boost your breathing. However, here, ensure the disinfectants or the chemicals of such pools like chlorine generally used for its management does not become an irritant for you. In such cases, it will worsen your asthma.
Therefore, if you are looking for a low-impact and enjoyable form of exercise that helps you with weight loss, pain management and cardio-vascular health, swimming is the perfect choice for you. Make sure to get all benefits of swimming and learn it from a good instructor so that you do not face any sort of danger when you get inside the pool. At the same time, the pool you choose for swimming should be clean and well-maintained so that you do not fall prey to any sort of infection. If you are already skilled in swimming, you can swim in natural waters however make sure you stay safe and away from danger.
