Has your work been stressing you out lately? Well, you may want to try a hand at swimming maybe. There are plenty of reasons to swim! Here’s a list that should get you motivated.
(1) You’ll be surprise to know that only 30 minutes of breaststroke can help you lose about 360-370 calories – so much more than 2 hours of cycling, gyming or even running. So, you’ll be losing a lot of weight by just spending half an hour in water every day. Now, that is some motivation to get started! Wait till you read the entire list.
(2) The best part about swimming is that the water keeps your body cool, even as your heart is all worked out. In fact, you may feel you can go on for a longer time, than when you are running, because swimming is gentle to your joints and muscles. It doesn’t wear you out and the water keeps you relaxed.
(3) We all know that the any object is automatically lighter when submerged in water – 8th grade physics, Archimedes Principle? So when you are in water, immersed till the waist your body is just bearing 50 percent of the entire body weight, and as you go down that percentage keeps decreasing. So when you are all the way submerged into the water, you only have to hold 10 percent of your body weight, while the rest of it is handled by the water. So swimming may be the best workout for people who are overweight or people who are suffering from arthritis.
(4) In the polluted world that we live, our lungs are slowly losing their capacity to use oxygen efficiently. But, when your face is under water, your body seems to adapt to the dissolved oxygen. So with every breath you take under water, you are feeding in fresher oxygen and you expel more of carbon dioxide every time you exhale.
(5) Another health fact? Well, swimming helps increasing the overall blood flow to your brain when you submerge yourself into the water at least up till the heart. Blood flow to the brain increases as much as about 14 percent.
(6) When you are swimming, you are actually moving your entire body against water, which builds strength to the muscles – as compared to other aerobic activities and exercises like running or cardio exercises.