Swimming: benefits, different styles and tips
Have you ever thought about starting to swim? Here’s to you useful info and tips
Swimming is considered the most complete sport, on the one hand because it is both an aerobic and a muscular activity, on the other because it activates the whole muscular system.
Swimming has several benefits, in fact, it works as a stress relief and positively influences the mood. It improves strength, resistance and helps you to burn many calories. Moreover, swimming does not stress the joints, which make it an activity that can be practiced by people suffering both of obesity or skeletal-muscle problems.
The ideal would be to train 2/3 times per week and at least for 45/60 minutes. Even though at the beginning finishing a session could be difficult, the right amount of constancy will improve the starting point.
Different swimming styles are going to develop different muscles, that’s why it is important to practice all the styles in every training, and if possible, to add exercises with the kickboard or the pull buoy.
These instruments are very useful for women wanting to improve their circular system or for older people suffering of hypotonia.
Going deeper, let's see which muscles are targeted depending on the practiced style and, more less, the number of calories that is possible to burn.
Freestyle, or crawl, mainly focuses on stretching the muscles of back and limbs, it improves glutes tonicity and abdominal strengths. The breaststroke, instead, improves body resistance and in particular it tones the muscles of legs and back. The butterfly improves the whole muscular system, this style requires an important strength and a well-developed technique, which make it a style mainly practiced by professional athletes. Finally, the backstroke is the best alternative to develop legs and shoulder, indeed, it is recommended to people suffering of backpain.
Depending on the intensity of the training, it also varies the number of calories burned. Beginners, who generally swims just for fun, burn from 180 to 440 kcal per hour. People practicing a medium intensity activity, instead, tend to burn from 300 to 740 kcal per hour. Professional athletes, who are really into the performance, burn from 440 to 1100 kcal.
But before starting, some precautions and tips!
Swimming is a sport for everyone, in fact it is practiced from newborn babies to older people. Before start swimming, it would be a good idea to have a medical check, in order to be sure not to suffer or cardiovascular or respiratory pathologies. Moreover, in cases of backpains it is better to avoid the breaststroke style, if suffering of slipped disc, instead, the backstroke should be avoided too.
To swim correctly, it is essential to learn how to breath from the beginning.
Moreover, when swimming in open waters like the ones of seas and lakes, it is very important to pay attention to waters temperatures which may cause thermic shocks and, in the worst of the hypothesis, could lead to hypothermia.
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