When you make that decision to lose weight, the first thing you think of doing is getting a gym membership. But you don’t have to hit the gym to transform your body. Swimming is great for general fitness and toning muscles, but if you're exercising with your waistline in mind, some might tell you to throw in the towel! However, you CAN lose weight, and all without the stress and pain on your joints you get from more traditional weight loss activities, such as running. Even better, you don’t have to commit to an Olympic sized training plan! Here are my reasons why swimming can be the perfect fat burner!
How Swimming Helps You Lose Weight
Like any cardiovascular exercise, swimming requires you to burn calories, which in turn, will help you lose weight. The resistance of the water helps provide that extra work for your muscles, which burns calories AND tones the major muscles in your body!
It’s important to remember at this point, different strokes burn different amounts of calories, depending on which muscles are being worked. Therefore, mix your strokes up, swim freestyle one day, and then butterfly the next to really demand the most out of your body. For example, breaststroke and butterfly work your shoulders, arms, and chest, while backstroke strengthens your back, abs, and quads.
Burning Those Calories
By having the additional benefits of growing and strengthening more muscles in your body, it will allow you to burn even more calories. According to research, in order to lose 1lb (0.5kg), you will need to burn around 3500 calories (which sounds a lot, I know!). To reach that 3500 goal, swimming breaststroke for 30 minutes can burn around 367 calories, and freestyle for the same amount of time can burn around 404 calories (which both burn more calories than running for 30 minutes).
Therefore, a good combination of a consistent swimming training plan and a healthy low-calorific diet is a serious combination for your weight loss goals! Further health benefits such as increased endurance, breathing, and lower cholesterol make swimming even more appealing!
What About Belly Fat?
It’s common knowledge that belly fat, especially around the waistline, is significantly harder to burn off than anywhere else on the body. This is due to higher amounts of fat cells around the belly, causing it to respond to weight loss and fat burning INCREDIBLY slowly. However, swimming can help with this. Swimming specific exercises such as flutter kicks and butterfly kicks target in and around the abs, and research has shown that woman who swam for three times a week, shed more fat in and around the waistline when compared to a similar walking exercise routine.
So How Much Do I Need To Swim?
As stated before, in order to lose 1lb (0.5kg), you will need to burn around 3500 calories, and swimming breaststroke for 30 minutes can burn around 367 calories, and freestyle for the same amount of time can burn around 404 calories. However, you can manipulate this by changing how you train. One thing to bear in mind, the more intense you train, the more weight you can lose. If you push your training to an hour, 4 times a week, you can lose up to 4lbs in a month. If you want to train a bit steadier, a 30 minute workout four times a week can help you lose over 1lb a month.
Again, a good combination of a consistent swimming training plan and a healthy low-calorific diet is needed to really hit those weight-loss goals. And individual characteristics such as current weight, muscle mass, and metabolism can also fluctuate weight loss differently between people.
Swimming Workouts For Weight Loss
To help get the most out of your swimming sessions, interval training can be used to really push your speed and effort, and burn the most amount of calories possible- and accelerate the fat burning process! The DuoSwim app has a variety of interval training plans for you to start your weight loss goals today. The workout below is just a sample of what we recommend:
Warm Up
1x200 Free @ 3:40
1x50 Kick (Build) @ 1:20
x 2
Pre Set
3x50 Free (Descend) @ 1:10
1x100 Back (DPS) @ 2:00
x 2
Main Set
1x200 Free 80% Effort @ 3:40
3x100 Free (Descend) @ 2:00
x 2
Cool Down
2x150 50 Back, 50 Free, 50 Back @ 3:00
Conclusion
If you’re not a massive fan of the gym, having physical issues such as joint pain, or simply looking for a new way to achieve those weight loss goals, swimming is a fantastic option for you. It’s an excellent way to get into shape, whilst also increasing muscle tone and improving your overall health like strengthening your heart and lungs, and lowering cholesterol.
Need Support?
Contact us at support@duoswim.com or use the messenger.