Swimming is one of the best ways to exercise.
Swimming can improve overall wellness not only with your body but with your mental health as well. As your body is 60% water, working out in water increases and benefits your workout. In fact, swimming as an exercise that helps improve lung function, improve heart function, lower stress, maintain a healthy weight, and tone and build muscles as well as provides a full body workout all without sweat. But don’t let that fool you: when you take those first couple of steps on land, you will feel all the work you put into your workout.
The Benefits of Water Exercise
Swimming using various swimming strokes. For example:
- Freestyle
- Butterfly
- Breast stroke
It is a full body exercise. Swimming hits everything: from your neck muscles and shoulders to your core, legs and muscle groups in between will be used. You can also isolate muscle groups if you want to work out a specific part of your body. Working out in water can assist in developing a healthy lifestyle. There are different programs put on by different organizations that include but aren’t limited to:
- Aquatic fitness
- Water workout
- Aqua aerobics
- Step classes
Plus, water workouts can be used in the off season to supplement training for specific sports or physical events.
Swimming and Recovery
There is also a benefit of using swimming as a recovery tool. Swimming has been known to decrease recovery time for injuries. With there being zero gravity and the buoyancy of the water, there is less stress on your joints.
Water therapy is used to treat a number of different injuries In fact, swimming can help in many ways:
- Improve your range of motion.
- Be relaxing
- Help improve your balance
- Increase coordination, stamina and flexibility
- Improve your posture, gait, agility and mobility
Swimming can also help with arthritis by being easier on joints. In fact, it will become an important part of arthritis management. There are programs to help with fibromyalgia by reducing pain, stiffness and fatigue. Water can help reduce swelling from previous injuries as well. Check with your provider to see if water therapy would be something for you to look into.
All in all, working out in the water not only benefits you physically but emotionally and mentally as well.
By Peyton Maas, the director of sales at Sprint Aquatics. She can be reached at peyton@sprintaquatics.com or 800.235.2156 x 10. You can review the website sprintaquatics.com if you are looking specific products.
Image couresty of Shutterstock
