With swimming you bring variety into your cardio training. Certainly, the step trainer, the ergo bike or the elliptical trainer are all excellent devices for cardiovascular. If you want to train diversely and leave the beaten track, try swimming.
It stimulates all the muscles of your body and improves your posture. In addition, with the high resistance in the water, you simultaneously do a muscle workout during the swim session.
3 benefits of swimming training
Here are 3 benefits of swimming training: efficiency, combination of strength and cardio and health benefits.
- A swimming workout is efficient The training effect of swimming exercises is twice as high as when running. Half an hour of swimming is equivalent to one hour of running. Because you activate all the muscle groups of your body while swimming, you burn more energy than with running or the ergo bike, where the upper muscles are hardly challenged.
- Swimming training as strength training When scratching or breaststroke you have to overcome the resistance in the water. This will give your muscles a power stimulus. But beware. With the first swim, some of your muscles will burn. Because the movement in the water challenges your muscles differently than the exercises in the weight room. But you can look forward to significant muscle growth in the upper back and in the arm and shoulder area.
- A low impact cardio workout Exercise in the weight room puts a heavy strain on your bones and joints. Here, the swim training offers a pleasant change and a joint-sparing endurance training. The water displacement reduces the weight of your body and allows gentle movements. This is especially useful for older athletes. Lower stress on bones and joints adds to overall health.
These 3 benefits make swimming workouts attractive to specific audiences such as overweight or rehab patients. Training for obese and athletes in rehab Good for overweight.
Especially overweight people will appreciate swimming as a joint-gentle sport. For them, there is no alternative in the cardio area. Because running would be too great a burden for thickness. Thus, the overweight man trains efficiently and decreases faster, without ruining his musculoskeletal system.
Good in the rehab phase
If you want to systematically build your shape after a break, you can not avoid swimming units. Again, swimming training speaks for efficiency and low stress on the joints. The rehabilitation phase passes faster, the athlete comes into shape faster and still spares his affected parts of the body parts. In the last section, we'll show you how to properly build your swimming training right from the start.
Swimming training, an introduction
At the beginning 3 units per week are enough. You train for 30 to 45 minutes in the water. If you are out of shape, divide your training into several sets. Start with intervals between 10 and 15 minutes and then pause. Extend the intervals with increasing fitness. Swimming is a sport that requires technology. Concentrate on light techniques like breaststroke. Pay attention to a clean execution of the movements. Get advice from experienced swimmers, read a book on swimming, watch technology videos on the Internet, or even join a swim class if in doubt. Especially the Kraultechnik wants to be learned. As far as the equipment is concerned, swimming glasses and ear plugs made of silicone make sense. With it you dive your head into the water without any shyness and your swimming technique improves. If you are fit and want to improve, then you can add strength training to your swimming workouts. Either for certain muscle parts or the entire body.
Conclusion
Especially in summer, swimming is an ideal alternative to cardio training on the bike. Try it out and get to know this refreshing and joint-gentle form of cardio and strength training.