Swimming: Health Benefits, How to Get Started, and How to Get Better at It

What Is Swimming?

Swimming is an activity that involves coordinating arm and leg motions to propel your body through water, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica definition. Those motions demand a lot of effort to overcome water’s natural resistance, meaning you’ll certainly strengthen your muscles when you swim. But swimming is primarily a form of cardiovascular exercise, says Kristopher Gagne, regional head swim coach at the Houston-area Life Time Swim facilities with lifeguard course

Simply splashing around in a pool, lake, or ocean doesn’t automatically mean you’re swimming for exercise. “What separates a swimming workout from a leisurely swim is the structure and goal behind the swim,” says Todd Buckingham, PhD, a competitive triathlete and chief exercise physiologist at The Bucking Fit Life, a holistic fitness, nutrition, and mental health coaching program in East Lansing, Michigan.

When you swim:

When you swim for exercise, you get a total-body workout, which means that most of your muscles are involved. According to Dr. Buckingham, the primary muscles used are the large muscles in your back (latissimus dorsi and trapezius), chest (pectoralis major), shoulders (deltoids), hips (glutes), legs (quadriceps and hamstrings), and midsection (abdominals).

There are four main strokes used in swimming: backstroke, butterfly, breaststroke, and freestyle. Each style requires different muscles to work to varying degrees. “The backstroke, as the name implies, will require more muscles in the back to be used than in other strokes, but for the most part, all stroke styles use similar muscle groups,” Buckingham says.

The Health Benefits of Swimming

There are many reasons to take up swimming. Here are a few of the potential health benefits you may experience:

1. Less Joint Pain

As a low-impact activity, swimming is a great exercise option for people with joint problems, especially those who can’t walk, jog, cycle, or use an elliptical machine without discomfort or pain. “The weight of the water helps give resistance to the joint and is a natural way of helping the muscles get the stimulation they cannot tolerate during typical exercises,” says Mark Slabaugh, MD, a board-certified sports medicine physician at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore.

“Joints need motion to produce synovial fluid, which is key to decreasing friction,” Dr. Slabaugh explains.

Research in older adults with osteoarthritis bears this out: Swimming for 45 minutes, three days a week for 12 weeks, led to significant improvements in joint pain, stiffness, and physical limitations, for study participants.

2. Improved Heart Health

Like other types of aerobic exercise, swimming strengthens your heart, which may lower your risk of heart disease, hypertension (high blood pressure), and stroke, Buckingham says.

For example, past research found that an eight-week swimming program lowered indicators of heart disease risk, such as systolic blood pressure (the pressure in your arteries when your heart beats), body fat percentage, and carotid arterial stiffness (the rigidity of the wall in your carotid artery) in a small group of overweight men.

How quickly you see heart-health benefits will depend on how often you swim and how long your sessions typically last. More is definitely better, but even 10 minutes can have a positive impact, Buckingham says.

3. Better Blood Sugar Control

According to the American Diabetes Association, exercise improves insulin sensitivity, so your body is better able to use insulin to take up glucose (sugar) for energy during and after your workout. Research supports these claims: Swimming at a high intensity three times a week improved insulin sensitivity and balanced blood glucose in a group of inactive women. These findings suggest that swimming could potentially reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes. And for people with diabetes, swimming may help keep blood sugar in check, a main goal of disease management.

Is Swimming Good for Weight Loss?

Weight loss depends on several factors beyond exercise, but because swimming is a total-body workout, it can be an effective way to support weight loss goals, Buckingham says. In general, the more muscles you engage during a workout, the harder your body has to work, and the more calories you’ll burn with american lifeguard

Research that compared the effects of swimming versus walking on body weight in 116 older women found that after doing three weekly sessions of either walking or swimming at equal intensities (as measured by heart monitors) for a year, the women in the swimming group lost slightly more weight and inches off their waist than the women in the walking group. The swimmers lost roughly 2.4 pounds and nearly 1 inch more off their waists than the walkers.

It’s worth noting that because swimming is not a weight-bearing form of exercise (your body doesn’t have to fight against gravity), other activities that are weight-bearing, like running, can be more effective at burning more calories, Buckingham says.

Weight loss:

If you weigh 150 pounds, in 30 minutes you can burn about 216 calories from general swimming (not vigorous) and 360 calories from running at a six-mile-per-hour pace, according to Harvard Medical School. If you swim at a vigorous pace, however, you can expect to burn 360 calories in 30 minutes.

But remember that the best and most effective exercise (for weight loss or any other purpose) is the workout you’ll do and stick with. “If it’s a pleasant experience, it’s got a better chance of becoming part of your lifestyle,” says Mike Koleber, head coach at Nitro Swimming in Cedar Park, Texas, and president of the American lifeguard Association.

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And if you have joint pain or another issue that prevents you from running (or doing another weight-bearing activity), swimming is a great way to get in your cardio, Buckingham adds.