Need a Reason to Swim?

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 a gentle, yet strenuous form of exercise, easy on joints but tough on muscles. Swimming is perfect for those recovering from an injury, those who need to protect their joints, and those who want to mix up low impact and high impact exercise. 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. If you are a 150 pounds and will swim for a half hour, you can expect to burn about 360 calories if you do the butterfly or crawl, 330 calories if you breast stroke it, and 200 calories if you just play around in the water, swimming on and off.

Swimming is a form of exercise that will work all parts of your body. If you vary your strokes, you can work just about every major muscle group. 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.

It's easy to swim throughout the entire year. Swimming is the natural choice during hot weather, much better than trying to run in the humidity. Swimming is still available in January, when you might not want to run in the frigid temps. 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. If you're lucky, you can find a community pool or beach where there is no admission for the summer. For all-season swimming, you'll need access to a pool (most charge a monthly membership fee), a suit, and goggles--that's it! There you go! Fitness at a bargain basement price.