Swimming is by far the best exercise you can do as it is an all-around exercise that works on everything. It doesn’t matter if you play another sport or don’t play sports at all, swimming will help you meet your fitness goals. Whether you are someone that wants to get better at the sport you play, improve your cardio, increase your endurance or build strength, swimming will help you achieve your goals. The all-around nature of swimming begs the question, is swimming the best exercise? We certainly think so.
Burns The Most Calories
Swimming is the best exercise for those that want to burn calories as fast as possible. Swimming burns 30 percent more calories than running and 40 percent more calories than biking. The water resistance from swimming makes the exercise harder which helps to burn a significant amount of calories in a short amount of time. Swimming being a full body workout is one of the reasons why it burns so many calories. If your goal is weight loss, body recomposition or if you just want to burn off the extra slices of pizza you ate the day before, then swimming is an excellent way to burn calories.
Works Every Muscle
Swimming is one of the only activities that uses and strengthens every muscle in your body. It uses all of your upper body muscles such as your pectorals, lats, deltoids while using all of your lower body muscles as well such as your quads, hamstrings and glutes. Not only does it strengthen all of these muscles but it does so in a low-impact manner. This means that there is minimal impact on your joints. This is unlike running which has the potential to damage the joints. If for instance you are a basketball or soccer player, there is only so much running that you can do before you start to ache. As a way to balance out the days you run, you can consider swimming on off days as a way to build and maintain your fitness while you avoid overloading your joints. Many land based athletes such as basketball and soccer players incorporate swimming into their workouts for this very reason.
Improves All Aspects of Athletic Performance
Not only is swimming a great all around exercise because it works every muscle, but also because it improves all areas of athleticism that an athlete needs to focus on. Swimming helps to improve balance, coordination, endurance, strength, cardio and more. This is why swimming can benefit just about everyone. Below are the ways in which swimming improves all of these areas:
Balance: Helps to make your joints more loose and flexible which improves balance.
Coordination: Swimming improves coordination since it requires you to do multiple things at once like kicking your legs, moving your arms, coming up for air (etc).
Endurance: Swimming requires you to push through and swim for extended periods of times which improves your ability to endure.
Strength: Swimming incorporates every muscle in your body and helps to strengthen them including glutes, quads, hamstrings, deltoids, lats, pectorals and more.
Cardio: Swimming improves your cardio as it increases your heart rate and the amount of oxygen your body takes in which makes it more efficient in doing so.
Register for Our Swimming Programs
Since swimming is such a great exercise, we recommend taking part in swimming camps or learning how to swim if you haven’t already. If you are between the ages of 4-16 and want to learn how to swim or take part in swimming camps, then TAC Aquatics has the right programs for you. We provide lessons for all ages and levels of swimmers that have low student to instructor ratios and personalized attention. We also have camps that are great if you want to have fun, swim competitively, continue your learning or simply to help you stay fit and exercise. To learn more about our swimming programs, click on the button below.
Lessons Camps
