We all know exercise is essential for a healthy body. It can be tricky to know which one will work for you. And which one will be easier than others to do weekly. Many people take up running or weight lifting at the gym. The other option for many is swimming. However, in the zeitgeist of wellbeing and exercise, it has been forgotten or brings so many issues to the fore. Yet, swimming has a lot of surprising and unique benefits!
Today, I will tell you about the incredible benefits of swimming that everyone forgets! And address some problems when trying to swim.
Secret benefits
Swimming and exercise, in general, has many benefits. The typical ones you will always hear is that it helps you lose weight, helps improve muscle mass and tone and make you body confident. But everyone hears those all the time. Plus, unlike other types of exercise has some hidden benefits no other form of exercise can do!
Doubles as therapy
Everyone forgets this one but swimming doubles as a form of therapy. Many physiotherapists prescribe hydrotherapy to people to help with mobility. Even if it’s just in the pool, swimming has been known to help many people with their muscles and joints. This is due to how the water redistributes your mass and provides more support for joints and muscles. It can enable you to stand and, in some cases, walk a couple of steps in the water. You won’t have specialist equipment like other places, but the swimming pool can still provide hydrotherapy to aid mobility. Don’t get me wrong, in some cases, it won’t cure mobility issues, but it helps.
Improves sleep
Swimming is a form of Aerobic exercise, which is known to improve your ability to fall asleep. Because you are using all your major muscles when swimming, it requires more engagement. Even when it’s a less intensive session, it makes the body more physically tired, leading to you falling asleep faster.
If you want a comparison, running only reduces 177- 279 calories an hour depending on intensity. In contrast, swimming reduces 350-420 calories. Showing that it is not only the better option for losing weight but gets you more tired more quickly, improving sleep.
Less strain
Remember how I said swimming was a form of hydrotherapy? Because of those benefits, it makes swimming less intense and strenuous on those joints and muscles. Which get easily injured in other sports like running or cycling and are suitable for healing said injuries. Because swimming supports your weight more and is less strenuous but raises the heart rate, it counts as steady-state training.
More adaptable
When we do something like running as an exercise, there are only so many ways to change it. Such as location, intensity and time. Which at times can make it dull and difficult for people of other abilities to do as a hobby. However, with swimming, you can change many things up, not just the location and intensity. You can change the way you swim, i.e. breaststroke to backstroke, and you can change it from floating to something like water polo! Or go deep diving underwater and swim through hoops. Because of the Olympics, people think it’s an intense exercise all the time. The adaptability and fun are forgotten.
With all these hidden benefits? Why are people not into swimming?
As I said in the intro, there are many reasons why people don’t swim more. I said I’d give you some solutions.
Body confidence
The first reason is because of body confidence. This could be due to several reasons, from stretch marks to weight, however. There are some ways around that. The first could be to get a bodysuit or bikini that covers the areas you don’t like and still makes you feel great. Or you could go with a pal, so you’ve got some moral support. Another similar thing could be going to a swimming session for women or another group to make you feel more comfortable.
Changing room and accessibility
Swimming would be the perfect way to exercise with my talk about muscles, joints, and hydrotherapy. However, swimming pools are highly unlike to have changing rooms with the right equipment to make it a viable option. For example, they don’t have hoists most of the time. And the lift to get into the pool can be terrible! Making it complicated. There isn’t much you can do to improve this other than campaign for change. Or travel miles independently and safely go swimming.
Another issue is that they might not have anyone to join them. It might be worth using social media to get a person you trust to go with you!
Ultimately swimming has a lot of excellent hidden benefits that make it the best form of exercise. Hopefully, with my suggestions, it becomes more of a viable option for people!
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