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Swimming for Leisure gives you the most fun and enjoyable fitness activity available (in our opinion anyway). What is certain, is that swimming is excellent for your health and best of all its open to everyone.

If We haven’t yet convinced you of the huge benefits of swimming let us give you some reasons why swimming is fab.

	Swimming is excellent for the whole body; it tones you up and strengthens your heart and lungs.
	It’s a great low impact exercise. Please keep reading for more information on this.
	Swimming improves strength, flexibility and balance.
	An important one – Swimming is great for WEIGHT CONTROL and increased energy levels. It’s the best calorie burner around. Please keep reading for more information and a great free tool on this.
	Swimming is great for people suffering with joint or muscular problems. For example people with leg or lower back troubles.
	IT FEELS GOOD. What other reason do we need to do something? It relieves your mind of stress.
	People of all different ages and abilities can enjoy swimming, unlike many land sports.
	ITS FUN – simple as that.

Have we convinced you yet? I understand the initially idea of getting in the pool, is scary, especially if you are unhappy with your figure. But trust me, it will be worth it, there is so much good that can come from swimming.

Let’s look at some of the above together in some more detail.

1) Swimming is a great calorie burner

Swimming CAN help you lose weight, combined with a good balance diet you are onto a winner.

I know what you are thinking……..

I’ve heard this all before.

Think about it like this.

Instead of going to the gym and climbing from one machine to the next, watching the clock, hoping your allotted hour will be up soon, try this….

Go swimming, splash around, have some fun with your kids, swim up and down with a friend. Before you know it you will have burnt loads of calories.

Even just getting in the water helps, the body will work harder to stay warm and so burn calories.

Because swimming is a full body workout a moderate pace can burn up to 800 calories an hour. Can you image the benefits of doing that (or even just half an hour) twice a week?

Try running in the water, climbing in and out, jumping in or water aerobics, which is very popular especially for women swimmers. All are good fun and great calorie burners.

Please see our page on Diet Tips if you are looking to lose weight.

What’s next…..

2) Swimming is a great low-impact exercise.

What does this mean?

It sounds impressive. Basically it means, swimming is exercise which puts very little stress on your joints, for example, knees, hips and ankles.

In FACT swimming produces 90% less stress on your joints than most other forms of exercise. This makes it a good activity for recovering after a injury or surgery.

Who else is low impact swimming good for?

1. Pregnant Women .

2. People with chronic problems for example, arthritis or osteoporosis. Please construct a doctor first though.

3. If you are new to exercise.

4. If you are very overweight.

Next benefit of swimming is.........

3) It feels good – Swimming that is.

It certainly does, but have you ever wondered WHY?

I wont pretend to know much about how our mind, body and soul work together, but the simple act of floating or gliding in the water relieves your mind of stress. I like to think that our stress floats away with the waves as they pass by, not very scientific, I know.

SPLASHING around with your friend, children or parents takes the mind off your day to day problems and centres it on fun with those around you. Laughter is a great stress buster.

Exercise in moderation is known to de-stress us, the best known ones are

• Swimming (of course)
• Walking
• Yoga

And Finally…….

4) Swimming is an excellent cardiovascular workout

Cardiovascular is just a big word for a simple thing. It means, swimming is excellent for working both our hearts and lungs, and it does this BETTER than any other exercise.

WHY?

Because we can’t breathe under water, which means learning to control our breathing is essential. The control over our breathing, and the physical effort of swimming makes it an excellent cardiovascular sport.

TIP: Use a heart rate chart to see how hard you are working.

Heart Rate chart for men

Heart Rate chart for women

If I was asked to stand up in front of the whole world and summaries the benefits of swimming in one sentence it would be this,

We want you to feel good about yourself and swimming is a very good starting point.

Please read the following few pages for advice on swimming nutrition and dieting tips

SWIMMING NUTRITION AND DIET

DIETING TIPS

I hope this page has been of use to you, please contact us if you would like to add further tips for our readers. Thanks

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