Swimming: A healthy sport with many benefits
Swimming can be called one of the healthiest sports. On the one hand, swimming has a great training effect, on the other hand it is easy on the joints. In addition, the risk of injury is significantly lower than in other sports with lifeguard training near me.
Relief for the joints: Swimming is good for the joints, as they are under significantly less stress in the water. The sport is therefore also suitable for arthrosis or rheumatism patients.
Muscle training: The stress on the joints is low, but the muscles in the legs, back, shoulders and chest are trained all the more effectively.
Cardiovascular Training: Swimming is good for the heart. It revs up the cardiovascular system without putting too much strain on it. As blood is pushed back into the chest when you swim, your heart has to pump harder, which in turn makes it stronger.
Good for losing weight: When you swim, you have a high energy consumption and can therefore also lose weight . According to the AOK , a person weighing 80 kilograms burns around 340 kilocalories per hour when swimming slowly. Fast breaststroke can even melt over 760 kilocalories, while crawling burns up to 900 calories.
Respiratory muscles: Swim vigorously using the respiratory muscles as long as you maintain an even rhythm of inhalation and exhalation. This also benefits asthmatics (well-adjusted with medication).
Low risk of injury: A big advantage of swimming is that the risk of injury is very low and the sport is therefore also very suitable for older, untrained or overweight people as well as for pregnant women .
The different types of swimming have this effect
Not every type of swimming trains the same muscle groups. In this section you will learn which parts of the body you train particularly with the respective swimming style.
Breaststroke: Breaststroke is perfect for training the leg muscles. Half an hour of breaststroke is as effective for the leg muscles as an hour of cycling . This swimming style is also suitable for people with joint problems, arthrosis or obesity .
Freestyle swimming: Freestyle swimming trains the breastbone, shoulders, core and arms. If you have problems with your hip or knee joint, you should primarily practice this swimming style.
Backstroke: Backstroke is perfect for strengthening the back muscles. At the same time, the spine is protected with this swimming style, so that people with back problems can also train their muscles in this way.
You should always pay attention to this when swimming
While you can’t go far wrong with swimming, there are a few things you should keep in mind to keep swimming healthy.
- In the case of physical complaints, you can only reduce them if you also practice the appropriate swimming style. In the case of back pain, for example, crawling will not help you much.
- If you have a heart defect, you should discuss with your doctor whether swimming is the right sport for you. Swimming can overwhelm a heart with reduced pumping capacity.
- If you want to start swimming, don’t overdo it at first. Before swimming, remember to warm up and start with 15 to 20 minutes once or twice a week. You can then slowly increase the amount of training.
- Even though swimming is one of the healthiest sports in itself, strains or cramps are also possible here if you don’t warm up properly.
- So before you really get started, you should do some stretching exercises.
- You should warm up before swimming, despite the low risk of injury. Targeted stretching of the muscles and brief movement of all joints prevents muscle cramps and ideally prepares the entire body for training.
