Swimming--how effective is it?

barrelracerkmae

My friend and I are going to start swimming at the wellness center since its free to students and I was curious to know how effective is it? MFP says that you burn 572 calories just by swimming for an hour at a leisurely pace... I want to make a stand in for running because my joints aren't great and I don't want to tear them apart further--plus, I just hate to run. I'm hoping swimming can be my stand-in for running because I love it. I know it burns a lot of calories, but as far as seeing actual changes, is swimming effective? Is it more effective in weight loss or just in inches? Have any of you seen results from swimming regularly?

stephinator92

Swimming will work every single muscle in your body and give you a cardio workout as well. I haven't used it to lose weight, but highly enjoy it as an exercise.

iplayoutside19

You're forgetting the other half of the equation. Just about anything can be effective...if you eat properly.

Gordo1981

I love swimming, if you are enjoying it, I would suggest trying to work on form, getting good form makes swimming more fun and you can push yourself to got faster. Great exercise, I am not sure that I would compare it to strength training with weights but it works out the entire body.

Good luck!

tennisdude2004

Swimming is great - it's even better if it's free.

Any activity where you're moving is well worth the time.

If you get good you can also incorporate a weekly sprint session into your routine.

Enjoy your splashing around.

KANGOOJUMPS

VERY!!!, great calorie burn!
great cardio.

Julesdublin

Swimming is a great cardio exercise. I broke my ankle really badly few years back (I have a metal plate and pins inside) so high impact exercise is a no go for me – swimming is just perfect. Biking as well.
The only thing that I don’t like is the way chlorine can make my hair really dry, even when I wear a cap.

Saltfae

Swimming is magical. I was a water baby, on a swim team, and now am a swim teacher. I may be biased :laugh:

In all honesty, swimming is one of the best forms of exercise. I am about to get all scientific on y'all. Water has, I believe, 5x's the resistance of air. Meaning just by moving about in the water you are burning more calories that you would on land. The more effort you put in to moving in the water the greater the calorie burn

Also, the more muscle you have the harder it is to stay afloat. Water is the opposite of dryland workouts because the more fat you have the easier water workouts will be. Buoyancy makes it easier. ( I say this because At my job we have a number of very overweight women who come in, use a few noodles or buoyancy belts, and just float. Then brag in the locker room about how they "worked out" and now are going to go eat mcdonalds because they earned it. Drives me nuts)

Also, on the swim team I could eat anything and everything and didnt gain any fat. I did gain weight but it was muscle. I looked fabulous in my racing suit. Stopped swimming, gained 150lbs in about 6 years. Oh yeah.

cwolfman13

swimming is a great combination of cardiovascular work and resistance work.

lporter229

You're forgetting the other half of the equation. Just about anything can be effective...if you eat properly.

Swim! Swim! Swim! And eat at a moderate deficit.

One thing to caution about leisurely swimming, if you eat your exercise calories back, be careful not to over estimate your burn. Time spent in the pool does not necessarily equal time spent swimming. It can be highly variable depending on what you are doing.

scubasuenc

Swimming can be great cardio exercise and uses all of the muscles of your body. However, I don't trust the calorie burns MFP has for it. My HRM shows I burn about half as many calories as MFP credits even though I'm swimming at a good pace.

It is also low impact, so for someone like me who can't run it is another alternative.

If you have easy access to a pool I recommend swimming. You can also do things like water aerobics that are lower impact.

jillyrobb

It's truly excellent cardio, and builds muscle, too; but MFP definitely overestimates calories for most people. If you're not swimming constantly, lap after lap without stopping, you won't burn the number of calories it states. And it's tough to guess what they mean by "leisurely" or "moderate".

Use this site to calculate your calories instead: http://www.swimmingcalculator.com/swim_calories_calculator.php. Enter the number of lengths, the amount of time you swam, and it will calculate your calorie burn based on your weight. It won't be as accurate as using a heart rate monitor, of course, but it's far better than MFP. Then you can just pick the closest MFP exercise, enter the length of your workout, and manually adjust the calories.

Have fun!

jillyrobb

Oh, and it's great for creating a long, lean torso!

Lld320

Swimming is awesome. I would do it everyday if you could listen to music in a pool.. till then, basket ball!

poedunk65

Swimming is the best total body workout. I swim 3 days a week and do a 1/2 mile each time. I mix it with some cardio machines and weight lifting.

Also you might want to try a spinning class if it's available.

poedunk65

It's truly excellent cardio, and builds muscle, too; but MFP definitely overestimates calories for most people. If you're not swimming constantly, lap after lap without stopping, you won't burn the number of calories it states. And it's tough to guess what they mean by "leisurely" or "moderate".

Use this site to calculate your calories instead: http://www.swimmingcalculator.com/swim_calories_calculator.php. Enter the number of lengths, the amount of time you swam, and it will calculate your calorie burn based on your weight. It won't be as accurate as using a heart rate monitor, of course, but it's far better than MFP. Then you can just pick the closest MFP exercise, enter the length of your workout, and manually adjust the calories.

Have fun!

I have checked other sites and MFP is pretty close. Also they have different levels you can log.

deksgrl

Losing weight is all about creating calorie deficit. You can create this calorie deficit by eating less, moving more, or a combination of the both. Any exercise will be beneficial to help lose, just as long as you are not eating more than your body requires for the energy it is expending.

People do say that MFP over estimates calories burned through exercise, so the real calories expended may be a bit lower. Regardless, swimming is good for overall health and fitness, it is low impact, and does burn calories.

amflautist

It's truly excellent cardio, and builds muscle, too; but MFP definitely overestimates calories for most people. If you're not swimming constantly, lap after lap without stopping, you won't burn the number of calories it states. And it's tough to guess what they mean by "leisurely" or "moderate".

Use this site to calculate your calories instead: http://www.swimmingcalculator.com/swim_calories_calculator.php. Enter the number of lengths, the amount of time you swam, and it will calculate your calorie burn based on your weight. It won't be as accurate as using a heart rate monitor, of course, but it's far better than MFP. Then you can just pick the closest MFP exercise, enter the length of your workout, and manually adjust the calories.

Have fun!

This^^^^^
I used to have a HRM I could use in the pool. I found that mfp overestimated my calorie burn by about a factor of two, even though I was using their lowest swim rate.

melissamarah

Swimming is magical. I was a water baby, on a swim team, and now am a swim teacher. I may be biased :laugh:

In all honesty, swimming is one of the best forms of exercise. I am about to get all scientific on y'all. Water has, I believe, 5x's the resistance of air. Meaning just by moving about in the water you are burning more calories that you would on land. The more effort you put in to moving in the water the greater the calorie burn

Also, the more muscle you have the harder it is to stay afloat. Water is the opposite of dryland workouts because the more fat you have the easier water workouts will be. Buoyancy makes it easier. ( I say this because At my job we have a number of very overweight women who come in, use a few noodles or buoyancy belts, and just float. Then brag in the locker room about how they "worked out" and now are going to go eat mcdonalds because they earned it. Drives me nuts)

Also, on the swim team I could eat anything and everything and didnt gain any fat. I did gain weight but it was muscle. I looked fabulous in my racing suit. Stopped swimming, gained 150lbs in about 6 years. Oh yeah.

I was on a swim team, and now I'm a swim teacher too! :flowerforyou: I mainly teach private kids' lessons at homes with pools. I can't wait until my swim season starts up, and it's any day now :happy:

Now, an hour of "leisurely" swimming will be hard to do if you're new to swimming. It really does wear you out. But it's so much fun!

When I was on my college swim team, I and the other girls were all in great shape. One teammate taught a water aerobics class, and offered to do a 15 minute workout for us. Lordy, we were all in pain after that. Seriously, those classes look like easy fun, but they can be killer!

Briargrey

10 years in a competitive swim league growing up - it was a fantastic workout!

like others said - definitely assume MFP overestimates that calorie burn. I tend to cut everything in half and put myself at a lower level (i.e. if I walked fast, I put it at walking slow, and I cut the calories way down).

barrelracerkmae

Would you recommend doing that all around or do you have other options for trying to count calories burned more accurately?

barrelracerkmae

Btw, thanks everyone for the insight! I'll definitely be watching even closer on my calories now!

Cortelli

I really enjoy the water and swim when I can -- but really only for fun and exploration, not just doing laps in a pool for exercise. Playing in the ocean or rivers / lakes etc. And I love snorkeling and scuba diving. So, big swim fan generally. Which made this recent snippet in the NYT pretty interesting to me:

Recent blog item in the NYT: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/16/ask-well-benefits-of-swimming/?_r=0

Text:

In some ways, the health effects of swimming are similar to those of land-based aerobic activities, such as jogging, walking or bicycling, said Hirofumi Tanaka, the director of the Cardiovascular Aging Research Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin. Like them, swimming is a “rhythmical aerobic exercise that you can maintain continuously” to improve cardiovascular and muscular health, he said. Experiments by Dr. Tanaka and others have found that swimming “is very effective at reducing blood pressure and improving vascular function,” just as walking and other land-based endurance exercises are.

The unique advantage of swimming is that it is done in water, which provides buoyancy and cooling, Dr. Tanaka said. “So the incidence of orthopedic injury as well as the rate of heat-related illnesses are both low,” he said.

But swimming has a notable drawback. “It seems to stimulate appetite,” Dr. Tanaka said, more so than do vigorous land-based exercises like running. As a result, swimming is not particularly effective at promoting weight loss or maintenance. In a 2005 study of exercise habits and body weight involving more than 15,000 adults ages 53 to 57, those who briskly walked, jogged or cycled gained little weight over the course of a decade. Those who swam tended to pack on pounds.

Still, “there is no doubt that swimming is a beneficial activity for other factors,” particularly cardiovascular health, Dr. Tanaka said. Just skip the celebratory cupcakes after your laps.

Curious if other swimmers have noticed this effect themselves?

MizMimi111

I've been swimming on avarage 3 times a week since mid - December. I love it. I've set small personal goals for myself like improving my breathing technique, improving my stroke, distance etc. I feel great after, it's helping to reduce my stress and along with my calorie deficit I'm losing weight.

Btw, I entered my average workout in the calculator below and it was comparative to MFP, within 20.

It's truly excellent cardio, and builds muscle, too; but MFP definitely overestimates calories for most people. If you're not swimming constantly, lap after lap without stopping, you won't burn the number of calories it states. And it's tough to guess what they mean by "leisurely" or "moderate".

Use this site to calculate your calories instead: http://www.swimmingcalculator.com/swim_calories_calculator.php. Enter the number of lengths, the amount of time you swam, and it will calculate your calorie burn based on your weight. It won't be as accurate as using a heart rate monitor, of course, but it's far better than MFP. Then you can just pick the closest MFP exercise, enter the length of your workout, and manually adjust the calories.

Have fun!

Hadabetter

Swimming laps, like slow jogging or ellipticals, can burn a lot of calories if you do it long enough, but it would be good to mix it up with a day of flat out, one lap sprint intervals every now and then.

I read somewhere that of all the elite athletes, swimmers have the highest body fat %, but I don't know if that is because swimming doesn't burn fat as well as other cardio, or if it is that people with naturally higher body fat are more buoyant and have an advantage in the pool. It's very easy to read a stat like that and jump to the wrong conclusion.

melissamarah

I have DEFINITELY felt ravenous after a swim session. But then that would be after 2-3 hours of teaching, with nothing but a bottle of water near me.

If you're in the LA area, I could give you a lesson! :flowerforyou: :drinker: