How Does Swimming Affect Your Muscles?
Losing fat and building muscle, I think, are the goals of most sports enthusiasts. However, due to the influence of weight, many people who are a bit overweight feel very tired when exercising on land. While swimming, a kind of sport in the water, can naturally reduce physical burden because of water pressure and buoyancy. And it is one of the best all-around exercises to build the muscles of the whole body.
Different types of strokes have different effects on all parts of the muscles.
Freestyle is the fastest stroke in swimming. When we swim freestyle, it's necessary to control the balance of the body to move forward. The driving force of freestyle mainly comes from the upper body whose muscle groups will provide about 80% of the power for swimming, especially the back and shoulder muscles. Generally, the inner muscles and big muscles like latissimus dorsi muscle and quadriceps femoris muscle are needed in freestyle so that it is very effective to build up the strength of the whole body.
Backstroke can fully exercise the muscles of shoulders, arms, thighs and other parts, which is similar to freestyle. What's more, backstroke can build up the latissimus dorsi, stretching the back muscles. And the muscles on the buttocks also can be exercised because we should try our best to keep hips from sinking in backstroke.
Our common impression of breaststroke is kicking, so the muscles we can exercise in breaststroke are leg muscles. The power for movement is generated by a series of leg actions with the hip, including the recovery of the legs and kicking. As the hip and knee joints are bent, we can move forward through doing the breaststroke kick, training the muscles of the hips and the legs better.
In butterfly stroke, our arms are swung forward, with hands pressing down and outward, which is similar to the chest expansion exercise. The effects of butterfly stroke mainly reflect on pectoralis major, latissimus dorsi and shoulder muscles. The legs in this stroke will do the dolphin kick, which is driven by the waist and abdomen. Therefore, it is very demanding for the strength of the waist and the coordination, and we can get the return immediately.
In addition, we are able to stimulate our muscles more effectively by adjusting the burden of swimming that is to change the way of swimming. Usually, we just swim for a period of time, which is known as aerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise is conductive to lose fat and increase endurance, but it may not have effects on muscle building. If you want to gain muscle by swimming and look more powerful, anaerobic training can be added to the exercise, such as sprint swimming. The combination of aerobic and anaerobic exercises can help us build muscles effectively and evenly.
Different types of strokes have different effects on all parts of the muscles.
Freestyle is the fastest stroke in swimming. When we swim freestyle, it's necessary to control the balance of the body to move forward. The driving force of freestyle mainly comes from the upper body whose muscle groups will provide about 80% of the power for swimming, especially the back and shoulder muscles. Generally, the inner muscles and big muscles like latissimus dorsi muscle and quadriceps femoris muscle are needed in freestyle so that it is very effective to build up the strength of the whole body.
Backstroke can fully exercise the muscles of shoulders, arms, thighs and other parts, which is similar to freestyle. What's more, backstroke can build up the latissimus dorsi, stretching the back muscles. And the muscles on the buttocks also can be exercised because we should try our best to keep hips from sinking in backstroke.
Our common impression of breaststroke is kicking, so the muscles we can exercise in breaststroke are leg muscles. The power for movement is generated by a series of leg actions with the hip, including the recovery of the legs and kicking. As the hip and knee joints are bent, we can move forward through doing the breaststroke kick, training the muscles of the hips and the legs better.
In butterfly stroke, our arms are swung forward, with hands pressing down and outward, which is similar to the chest expansion exercise. The effects of butterfly stroke mainly reflect on pectoralis major, latissimus dorsi and shoulder muscles. The legs in this stroke will do the dolphin kick, which is driven by the waist and abdomen. Therefore, it is very demanding for the strength of the waist and the coordination, and we can get the return immediately.
In addition, we are able to stimulate our muscles more effectively by adjusting the burden of swimming that is to change the way of swimming. Usually, we just swim for a period of time, which is known as aerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise is conductive to lose fat and increase endurance, but it may not have effects on muscle building. If you want to gain muscle by swimming and look more powerful, anaerobic training can be added to the exercise, such as sprint swimming. The combination of aerobic and anaerobic exercises can help us build muscles effectively and evenly.