Five Reasons to Take Up Swimming

Mind is All

Have you thought about adding swimming to your fitness plan, but haven't done it yet? Check out these five reasons to make swimming part of your fitness routine.

Swimming is easy on your body, especially your joints. Swimming is especially good for people who have been recently injured, who have vulnerable joints, or who desire to add a low impact option into their routine. The cool water soothes swollen joints and muscles, and the low impact nature of the sport protects your joints from further injury.

Swimming is a great calorie burner. Choose your strokes wisely, and you can burn a lot of calories in a short stint. Assuming you weigh about 150 pounds and want to exercise for a half hour, you can burn up to 360 calories doing the crawl or butterfly, 330 calories doing the breast stroke, and 200 calories doing general swimming.

Swimming is a form of exercise that will work all parts of your body. Try swimming sets of different strokes so you'll work each of the major muscles groups. If you divide forty minutes of swimming into ten minutes of each of the following swim strokes (crawl, butterfly, breast stroke, and backstroke) you'll work all of your major upper and lower body muscles.

You can swim all year long. Swimming is the natural choice during hot weather, much better than trying to run in the humidity. Too cold to run outside, go to the heated pool at the gym! If swimming in the winter sounds chilling, seek out a heated pool and bring along a set of dry clothes so you can shower and dry your hair all the way before leaving.

Swimming is a relatively cheap sport. You may even be able to swim for free in the summer, if you live near a lake or free pool. To swim year-round, you just need a bathing suit, admission to an indoor pool, a bathing cap, and googles. Presto! Fitness at a bargain basement price.