Swimming is a popular sport in the summer months, and if you are willing to brave the indoor swimming pool or wear a wetsuit, you can enjoy swimming all year round. Swimming is a low-impact form of exercise that can be great for your joints and help people with many different conditions enjoy the benefits of exercise. This article will take a look at the benefits of swimming and how it can enhance your health.

Swimming is a water activity that can be practiced in groups or individually. It can be done competitively but can also be done for enjoyment and fitness. There are multiple different strokes of swimming which refers to the movement of your limbs and placement of your body. The most common strokes include the breaststroke, backstroke, freestyle, and butterfly.

At Vascular Care Specialists of Los Angeles, Dr. Mathew Cheung and Dr. Peter Lin discuss the top 10 benefits of swimming for your body, including cardiovascular health. In this post, you will also learn swimming has multiple benefits that can improve not only your physical health but also your emotional and mental health.

As with any form of cardiovascular exercise, you reap significant benefits to your long-term health by swimming regularly. It can make your heart work more efficiently by making it stronger. A stronger heart pumps blood more efficiently, meaning you’ll gain improved circulation throughout your body (even your brain!). And because our blood is how we receive nutrients to our bodies, swimming helps improve circulation and cardiac efficiency, reducing your risk of cardiovascular disease.

In addition to lowering your risk of heart disease and stroke, swimming can improve the number, size and efficiency of mitochondria you have. These are the energy-producing engines we all have inside our muscle cells. When they’re more efficient, other day-to-day tasks require less effort.

When you experience less stress on your heart, muscles and brain, overall longevity is the result. Studies have discovered high-level swimmers who swim at least an hour a day for five days a week can have a biological age that is about 20 years less than their chronological age. That’s a longer way of saying swimming helps slow down the aging process.

Along with the possibility of building more muscle, you can stave off the worst effects of age-related diseases (like sarcopenia) as long as you’re also including a well-balanced diet.

Swimming is also a great activity to improve your lung health. When you swim, especially when you practice freestyle, breaststroke, and butterfly, it involves holding your breath for a specific period. This helps to improve your lung capacity and can help you get in control of your breathing. This control of your breathing can help individuals with asthma and other lung conditions. It can also have a calming, meditative effect.

There are multiple benefits of swimming to your mental health and it not only helps improve your mood but also the health of your brain.

During swimming, your brain releases hormones that act as natural anti-depressants. These hormones help to boost your mood and can relieve depression and anxiety.

The color of the water also may play a part in enhancing your mental health. Water is generally a blue color, and the color blue may give a feeling of peace and tranquility and can reduce anxiety as well as aggression.

In addition, swimming can also enhance your brain health. Swimming involves submerging your body in water, and this helps to increase the flow of blood to your brain. This helps to bring nutrients to the brain and removes waste products and toxins.

Furthermore, especially if you join a swimming group or club, swimming can help you meet new people and make friends. This helps to reduce any feelings of loneliness and can help to reduce depression and anxiety.

Many individuals, such as those experiencing arthritis and injuries, find many exercises difficult.  One of the main reasons for this is that many exercises are high-impact, meaning that your feet, hands, or both leave the ground and come back down, causing an impact. This can worsen the pain of an injury.

Swimming is a great alternative for these individuals as it is low impact. Instead of your body repetitively hitting a surface such as while running or walking, you are moving through the water. This provides a gentle yet effective form of exercise that can also help to reduce pain from these conditions.

Studies researching the effects of swimming on individuals with arthritis suggest that swimming not only helps to reduce pain, but the benefits of swimming in terms of pain management were reportedly the same as the benefits from cycling.

We’re not saying that swimming is easy (far from it!), but swimming takes much less of a toll on your body than, say, running or riding a bike. That’s because exercising in water lessens the impact of your body weight on your joints.

The buoyancy of the water in the swimming pool takes the weight off. Swimming is especially helpful if you have a condition that causes stiffness or joint pain like the following conditions.

• Arthritis: Swimming has long been known to be one of the best exercise options for people with arthritis, helping to reduce symptoms and improve muscle strength.
• Fibromyalgia: One study of women with fibromyalgia found that swimming regularly for eight months led to a 20% improvement in their overall physical function and a whopping 53% improvement in their stiffness.
• Obesity: Excess weight can put pressure on your joints, making them stiff and sore. But the buoyancy of water makes swimming and other water-based exercises a great option for people who have obesity and overweight.
• Pregnancy: Being pregnant can bring all kinds of discomfort, including muscle and joint pains, but exercising in the water can help protect your joints and bring relief.
• Reduced mobility: If you have a disability that impacts your mobility, like muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy or multiple sclerosis, water exercises can help reduce pain and spasticity.

Swimming is one of the few exercises that can work multiple different muscles at the same time. Certain activities, such as running or walking, focus mainly on certain muscle groups. Swimming, however, targets multiple different muscle groups. The different strokes of swimming further target different groups of muscles.

The breaststroke targets the shoulder, arms, and chest muscles. Freestyle targets the arm and back muscles. Meanwhile, the backstroke targets the back muscles, and the butterfly targets the arm and shoulder muscles. All the strokes involve leg action, and the muscles predominantly exercised are the thigh, calf, and glute muscles.

With swimming, you are using your limbs to move your body across a length of water. The water provides a form of resistance, and this helps to activate your muscles. For all your muscle groups to benefit, it is best to practice a combination of the different strokes.

By working multiple muscle groups in your body, swimming helps to:

• Tone muscles
• Build strength
• Build endurance

Experiencing sleep disturbances such as insomnia or waking up frequently during the night can wreak havoc on your life. Swimming can help to provide a solution to sleep disturbances. During swimming, your body uses energy which can help make your muscles and body more tired.

The temperature of the water can also help to improve your sleep habits. If you are swimming in a cold water pool, the colder temperature may make you feel more tired than usual. This is because your body is working harder to maintain your body temperature. Warmer water can also make you feel tired as the warm water dilates your blood vessels. The blood is then able to flow closer to your skin to cool you down. This process also uses more energy and can leave you feeling tired after.

Swimming is a form of cardio exercise, which means that it can not only exercise your muscles but also your heart. This helps to keep your heart strong and healthy. Studies suggest that swimming can help to reduce blood pressure as well as reduce the risk of death from heart-related conditions.

Because very minimal effort is required to move your body through water, swimming is a welcome opportunity for people of all ages to improve their fitness. People of all fitness levels swim, each for different reasons.

For example, athletes can use pool running to stay fit when they have a lower body injury. Children can improve their coordination; the pressure of the water on their skin provides feedback to the brain, letting it know where they are in space. Called proprioception, this is a huge benefit to anyone who works out in the water.

Older individuals at risk of falling can improve their strength and balance without fear of getting injured while in the water. Rehabilitation patients can work toward preventing the atrophy of their muscles while they work back to full strength. Even though you have to support less of your body weight while in the water, you can still get a great workout because of the resistance provided.

And remember, to benefit from swimming as an exercise, you don’t need to swim thousands of meters of repetitive laps. Simply walking through the water can provide some people with enough stimuli to improve themselves. For others, there are classes like Aqua Zumba® and aerobics, the latter using foam weights to increase the resistance of moving in the water. And by treading water, you do far more than just challenge your cardiovascular system: It’s a fun way to relieve stress and even a way of bonding with friends or family. For the more adventurous, different plyometric exercises like jumping in the pool or running underwater with weights can help increase strength and power without the danger of overtraining your body.

As with any sport or activity that you may be new to, please consult a qualified professional for coaching assistance or lessons when you start. It helps you build a good foundation. One word of caution, though: Wherever you choose to swim, do so safely, never doing so alone and always near a lifeguard.

At Vascular Care Specialists of Los Angeles, we strive to provide the best service, care, and results possible. If you have circulation problem related to your arteries or veins and would like to seek consultation with a vascular surgeon, give us a call at 626-275-9566 to schedule an appointment. You can also visit us at www.vcsla.com for more information.