Conor Want to optimise your workout? Just add water.
Effective fitness regimes, like the weather, are best made unpredictable. They’ll have you basking in confidence one day and try to break you the next. But the most dangerous type of fitness regime is the predictable, set regime, which can result in a progress plateau. To avoid this, do the most powerful thing you can do to your fitness regime. Change it.
How? By hitting the pool to get Speedo Fit.
Perhaps you love running, maybe pumping iron is your passion, or perhaps you’ve got the Zumba bug? Whatever your normal fitness regime includes, adding swimming can enhance performance in your core sport and mix up your routine.
Why? Because swimming is water-based cardio which burns calories, sculpts muscles and is a great complement to dry-land exercises.
Here are SIX ways to add swimming into your fitness routine:
1. Enjoy low impact
Swimming is easy on the joints, allowing you to do an intense workout without the impact on your knees. Adding a swim into your weekly regime gives your regularly used muscles more opportunity to rest, without forgoing an intense cardio session, meaning you will perform better on your run or cycle days.
2. Add lean muscle mass
The added resistance of water means swimming builds muscle faster than any cardio workout on dry land. So including a 60 minute swim in your weekly fitness routine will help you build long, lean muscle mass to complement the shorter, denser muscles that develop from weight training. These lean muscles will boost your metabolism, helping you to burn extra calories.
3. Warm down benefits
After an intense endurance workout, such as running, cycling or weightlifting, head to the pool for a warm down. The warm water will help stretch your tired muscles, and flush out the toxins built up in your muscles during your workout, helping to prevent next day soreness, stiffness and possible injury. A warm down swim can also help relieve stress, so you will emerge from the water a calmer you.
4. Aid your recovery
Having an injury is never fun, but it needn’t mean the end of all physical exercise. Depending on your type of injury, swimming can offer a low-impact, all-over body workout – a great way to keep or regain your fitness levels during recovery. Swimming during a recovery can also help to prevent stiffening of joints and muscle deterioration, which can aid a faster recovery time. Your Doctor can advise you about the suitability of swimming during your recovery.
5. Alternative workout
Swimming is a perfect way to get your workout in during bad weather – there’s no need to get cold or risk injury – just nip to your nearest indoor swimming pool and take the plunge. A dip in the pool is also a great way to get a fitness session in if you’re taking care of little ones. They’ll have a great time splashing around whilst you power through your swim workout.
6. Improve breathing technique
Swimming helps to increase your lung volume and forces you to learn better breathing techniques that can aid you in your core sport. By increasing your ability to take in and effectively use oxygen, swimming increases your endurance capacity, meaning you can cycle, run or lift weights for longer without getting winded.
