Sports and activities
Swimming activates the muscles of the whole body while promoting a feeling of relaxation.
What are the benefits of swimming?
Sports and activities
Swimming activates the muscles of the whole body while promoting a feeling of relaxation.
Although swimming doesn’t provide the same strength-training benefits as weight lifting, there are ways to increase endurance and build muscle strength while swimming. For example, many swimmers use hand-held oars to increase water resistance and develop a stronger, more efficient stroke.
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2 . Swimming can help you meditate
Doing a repetitive, rhythmic activity while submerged in water can be meditative for many people. In fact, some people call it mindful swimming.
In an interview with the New York Times , Terry Laughlin, founder of Total Immersion Swimming, explains that “by swimming with mindfulness, we can transform routine swimming sessions into an immersive form of meditation in motion.”
He also suggests that swimmers set the intention to be fully present in the water and then focus on breathing and stroke mechanics. He notes that listening to the sounds of swimming and practicing gratitude can provide additional mental health benefits.
3 . May help reduce body fat
Frequent swimming (combined with a healthy diet) can help improve body composition (muscle to fat ratio). However, it is important to note that vigorous swimming, compared to occasional aquatic training, is the mechanism that usually provides the greatest benefits.
For example, a 2015 study published in the Journal of Exercise Rehabilitation found that middle-aged women who swam vigorously for 60 minutes three times a week for 12 weeks reduced their body fat by about 3 percent. The swimmers also demonstrated improved flexibility, cardiovascular endurance, and blood lipids.
4 . In general, it is a safe and low-impact exercise
Many of the most popular contact sports and individual athletic activities carry some risk of musculoskeletal injury due to impact. This can include contact with the pavement, with other players, or with the equipment being used, which can lead to bruises, bone fractures, and even more serious injuries. In this sense, swimming provides a safer training environment.
The likelihood of these types of injuries occurring during swimming is minimized because moving in the water is considered low-impact exercise, since it reduces the effect of body weight through buoyancy, according to a 2015 review in the Journal of Exercise Rehabilitation .
5 . It can improve your blood pressure levels
Swimming can help you reduce your risk of developing hypertension, or high blood pressure. According to a 2018 study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology , it can even lower your blood pressure if you’ve already been diagnosed with the disease.
Case in point : In a 2014 study in BioMed Research International , 62 women with mild hypertension were randomly assigned to participate in either high-intensity swimming workouts, moderate swimming, or a control group.
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