If you need to lose weight, you must combine a healthy diet with regular exercise. If you're used to living a sedentary lifestyle, then coming up with an exercise program you can stick with might be difficult. Swimming could be the perfect choice for you, especially if you have limited mobility due to age or obesity. Here's why you should consider adding this form of exercise to your weight loss plan.
Best Of Both Worlds
Swimming is a combination of cardiovascular and muscle-building exercise. The cardiovascular component helps you burn calories, so you can lose weight quicker. When you move against the resistance of the water, it helps build and tone your muscles. This improves your body shape. In addition to losing weight, regular swimming workouts help improve your overall health, and they ward off problems caused by being sedentary as you age.
Easy On Your Joints
One of the great things about swimming is it takes weight off your joints. This makes it the ideal exercise if you suffer from arthritis. Plus, with your body being suspended by the water, you are able to get a much fuller range of motion with your joints than you could if you exercised out of the water. Moving in the water is also much easier when you are overweight and have difficulty exercising otherwise.
Perfect For All Abilities
You don't have to be a marathon swimmer to benefit from working out in the pool. You can still burn calories by dog paddling, or freestyle swimming. You exert yourself, and burn calories, when you propel your body through the water, no matter how you do it. If you go swimming a few times per week, you will gradually build your skills, so you can swim laps using various techniques that work out all your muscle groups. If you have trouble swimming, you can use a floatation belt that keeps your head above water. If nothing else, you can hold onto the side of the pool and exercise your legs by kicking them in the water.
Easy Access To Facilities
If you have a pool in your backyard, you are very lucky to have instant access to exercise. Even if you don't have your own pool, it is still easy to find one so you can swim. Join a health club, so you can swim indoors all year long. In the summer, you can go to the public pool and swim in the sun. Public facilities often set aside hours for adult swimming so you can do laps without kids splashing around. If you live near a lake or the ocean, you can swim there too, so you can keep your regimen exciting and varied. It's easy to find a pool, even when you travel, since most hotels have swimming pools.
Swimming can be an intense workout, but it can also be a time to relax. When you want to burn calories and lose weight, be sure you stay active in the water. You want your workout to be moderate or vigorous intensity. At moderate intensity, you feel the effects of an increased heart and breathing rate, yet you still have enough wind to carry on a conversation. When your workout reaches the vigorous stage, you are working so hard, you cannot carry on a conversation without stopping to rest. Also, for your weight loss to be successful, exercise daily, or at least several times per week, rather than saving it all for the weekend.
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