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The Many Fitness Benefits of Swimming

Posted Aug 26 2008 4:34pm

Swimming is a fun way to vary your workout routine and keep your body from adapting to your normal workouts. You can avoid fitness plateaus by changing up your routine every two or three weeks. So, let's look at some of the benefits of swimming:



1. Swimming provides great cardiovascular conditioning for your heart and lungs. It is a great cross-training routine to mix with your treadmill, running, stepper, bike, elliptical, etc. routines. You can also avoid or rehabilitate injuries with swimming exercises.



2. Weight training tends to build short, dense muscles while swimming builds longer, leaner muscles. Swimming also builds up your body's core muscles. This makes the two forms of exercise good complements to each other and will help speed up your metabolism, burn fat and lose weight.



3. Help your flexibility by adding a swimming session after your treadmill or running session. The warm water will relax your muscles and make it easier to stretch after your workout. It will also lessen muscle soreness the next day.



4. You can build more endurance by swimming (with proper technique) because you are able to swim for longer periods than you can run or jog.



5. You can even have fun and burn calories exercising in the pool with friends by playing games like water polo, water volleyball or water football.

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