Professional swimmers possess chiseled figures with broad shoulders. It is no wonder that most swimmers look lean and have perfect muscles, as this is one of those exercises that work every muscle in your body. Ok, at least most of them. You can shape your body with swimming even without any other exercise.
Swimming can help you lose some weight as well as tighten your whole body and make you more fit. Now, let’s take a closer look at all the benefits of swimming.
Is Swimming Good for Your Body Shape?
A lot of people believe that swimming changes their body shape. In time, your body will become increasingly muscular and leaner. Many of us desire a slim, elongated, broad-shouldered body shape that swimming creates.
Swimming works your arms and shoulders, abs, glutes, back, and also legs. When swimming you are activating all these muscles regardless if you choose butterfly, breaststroke, or back crawl.
Most people hate doing abs workouts, as they are often hard and bring slow results. But, if you opt for swimming, you will achieve the same results while feeling less tense.
And do you know how many pushups, pullups, Supermans you need to do to get the muscles on your back showing? A lot. But when swimming, you are activating your back – which can also help with problems such as chronic back pain.
Everyone knows that the golden rule for having strong and muscular glutes is to do squats, but have you tried swimming? Swimming can help you build toned glutes and without any weights. You can opt for any swimming style and still see some amazing results.
And, let’s not forget the legs. Tons of people skip leg day or a gym day for that matter. But you don’t need to visit the gym to get your legs toned. You can go to a swimming pool and work out your legs in a much more pleasant environment.
Fighting Stubborn Belly Fat
The first thing you should know is that swimming burns a lot of calories. The number of calories burned by swimming varies depending on how hard you work.
As calories are burned, fat is reduced, including abdominal fat. Casual swimming helps you lose weight in that way. Imagine that you jump in the pool and do some freestyle – it will still burn tons of calories. Nevertheless, if you choose to swim in a certain way you can even target your belly area precisely.
Reducing Thigh Fat
You can also burn some fat off your thighs by swimming. With swimming styles like breaststroke that require specific leg movements, you can reduce fat around your thighs. You can also swim in intervals. By swimming faster for a few laps, you will burn some extra calories.
As a bonus, when you take a break from swimming laps, stand on the edge of the pool and grab its ledge with your hands, then allow your body to float while doing wave maker. Your thighs will become lean very quickly if you do this.
