Swimming to better health

Water can be an important element in a daily exercise routine beyond simply quenching your thirst. Swimming offers a nice outlet for daily exercise. A few laps or exercises in the pool can do wonders for increasing your energy, improving your fitness and giving you a fun activity to look forward to doing several days a week.

Swimming offers many advantages over other forms of exercise. Water offers continual resistance to every stroke or kick. This means you can build up your muscle strength and endurance in a shorter time period than simply running on a treadmill. Your body also cools down in the water much better, so you run less of a risk of heat exhaustion and dehydration.

Physical changes that occur with swimming include:

• Improved muscle strength
• Increased endurance
• Muscular flexibility
• Stronger heart
• Healthy weight

Swimming offers a good foundation for a healthier lifestyle. It is a perfect exercise for when you need to improve your fitness, lose weight or rehabilitate from injury. It also is a great way to reduce stress and have fun.

You can incorporate a variety of exercises into your daily swimming. Here are a few ideas to get you started before you dive into the pool:

• Water aerobics – These full body exercises improve your cardiovascular health. A water aerobics session should last 20 minutes.
• Water walking – Go to the shallow end of the pool and move forward, backward or side to side using short or long strides to improve your leg strength.
• Wall exercises – Use the wall isolate specific muscle groups and target them for flexibility training or toning exercises.
• Swimming laps – The classic method of water exercise. You can add a little variety by changing up strokes at certain lap intervals.