8 Health Benefits of Swimming Regularly
If you’re looking for a fun way to improve your health, look no further than your backyard.
Your pool is the ideal place to relax and have fun while also improving your health and strengthening your body.
Let’s take a look at the top eight benefits you’ll experience when you make swimming a part of your routine.
1. Improves Cardiovascular Health
Swimming is a no-impact workout that, when done regularly, helps your heart to pump more efficiently causing increased blood flow throughout the body.
Swimming regularly can reduce blood pressure and raise ‘good’ cholesterol HDL levels. It can also reduce your risk for stroke and heart disease.
2. It Strengthens Your Lungs
One of the best full-body exercises, swimming can help you to expand your lung capacity. By swimming on a consistent basis, your lungs learn to absorb more oxygen and increase your breath capacity.
As an added benefit, your diaphragm and the muscles lining your ribcage become stronger too. Because these are the muscles that control your breathing, strengthening them makes breathing easier overall.
3. It Tones Your Body
Swimming is an exercise that uses your entire body and, because of that, you’ll become stronger, leaner and better toned.
Swimming in a wide variety of styles enables you to target all of the different muscle groups, making this exercise an effective way to get a complete workout. No matter what style of swimming you choose, your legs, glutes, core and arms will all be working hard.
4. It Helps You Lose and Maintain Weight
Burning calories is a healthy function of the body that fires up your metabolism, allowing you to maintain a healthy weight or shed unwanted pounds.
And what better way to do that than with swimming? Even if you choose a moderate pace, a 155-pound person can burn 255 calories in 30 minutes. That beats walking by far, which would burn only 140 calories.
While jogging burns slightly more calories than swimming, exercising in the water ensures your body is under no strain, making for healthier joints and less muscle pain.
5. It Offers Pain Management
Speaking of pain, swimming is the ideal physical activity for anyone suffering from an injury or chronic condition. The buoyancy of the water supports and protects joints and limbs allowing greater movement than could be achieved on land. Not only does swimming allow for exercise without as much pain, but it increases flexibility and endurance and improves circulation.
6. It Helps Fight Stress
If you need to unwind after a long, hard day, nothing compares to a refreshing dip in the pool. Not only does swimming relieve tension in your muscles, it can leave you feeling rejuvenated in mind and body. Studies have shown swimming helps the brain to generate new cells, particularly in the parts where chronic stress has caused deterioration.
7. It Can Improve Your sleep
Swimming not only targets the main causes of sleep disorders like stress and tension, it can improve your sleep quality overall.
Swimming in the evening can help your body achieve the natural temperature drop required for a good night’s sleep. The drop in the temperature you experience as you climb out of the pool coupled with the physical exertion of swimming can usher in sleep in a natural, safe way.
8. It Can Improve Your Balance and Posture
Swimming strengthens your core muscles, a key component in supporting and stabilizing your body. Your core — the abdomen, middle and lower back, hips and sides — will gain strength and flexibility with regular swimming. And, the stronger your core is, the more your posture will improve.
Outback Pools and Spas
Are you ready to dive in to pool ownership? Visit us at Outback Pools and Spas, your trusted pool company in Witchita Falls. We pride ourselves on providing our customers with the best swimming pool experience possible.
Come visit us at our showroom to see the swimming pools for sale such as the Alize, Alpha, Bravo and Brisa, or to shop for pool accessories. Our expert staff is always on hand to help you find what you’re looking for.