Posted by Winston Salem | Posted in winston salem fitness | Posted on 26-07-2010
Swimming can be a wonderful form of exercise. It uses almost all the major muscle groups, and places a vigorous demand on your heart and lungs. It develops muscle strength and endurance, and improves posture and flexibility.
The buoyancy factor makes it particularly useful for people who are pregnant, have injuries like leg or lower back problems, or who find high-impact exercise uncomfortable. It’s a great sport for people of all ages and all proficiency levels.
So that you can lose weight, you may want to keep your swimming regime (speeding up your pace a little bit and increasing the length of your swimming sessions, if necessary), and supplement it with some good-paced, arm-swinging walks.
Research shows that swimming and weight loss, nevertheless, has produced inconsistent and contradictory results.
Research shows that swimmers lost weight (and body fat), gained a few pounds, and had no weight changes at all.
In most of the cases where swimmers gained weight, it was lean body mass (muscle) and not fat.
One research study found that individuals who swim in cold water may consume more calories post-workout than individuals who swim in warmer water.
So when you’re swimming mainly to lose weight, make sure that you aren’t inadvertently eating unneeded calories during post-workout snacks and meals.
In addition, the number of calories you burn while swimming depends on how fast you go and for how long.
At a slow pace, twenty laps may burn only fifty calories – little more than simply staying afloat. In contrast, a swimmer doing a brisk forward crawl will often burn as much as eleven calories per minute.
Swimming in a pool could be more conducive to the kind of workout you are looking for than swimming at a beach or lake; pools often have lap swim hours, and you won’t have to contend with rolling waves or boats.
For a guaranteed workout, you can also join up with a USA Masters Swimming group near you.
In the end, weight loss is dependent on a simple formula; more calories are burned than are consumed. No one exercise is necessarily better than another for weight loss; what matters is that you eat a healthful, well balanced diet and remain regularly physically active.
Swimming may be a fun activity to add to your workout routine, whether you are a novice or a master. Enjoy!
