SWIMMING - Top 10 Advantages of Swimming for Health

Article by abhishek agarwal

There’s only one routine, if done properly, promises the very best of your health, and shape, and for that, you don’t even need to go to those expensive gymnasiums! All you need is water, umm, quite much of it.

If you’re still guessing, quit it; we are talking about Swimming.

Swimming is the most sought after cardiovascular exercise, and although it seems to be a challenging sport at the beginning but for most of the people, it’s a fun and healthy affair in the following days. From being a stress buster at times, to being a life saver, this activity is one of the most sought after activities, by celebrities, athletes, sports persons, and anyone who thinks about her/his health, as it’s one of those rare exercises that look after each and every part of your body, unlike most of the other, which concentrate on one part at a time. Also, if you look at the amount of efforts that other activities require, swimming can be considered as the best in the lot, due to its high positive outcomes, and lower investment, in terms of money as well as mental pleasure.

And yea a message to all the pals who are thinking to get into your nearest “Air conditioned” gym to build some muscles, go through this article, for it might actually open your stairway to hea(lth)ven.

Here are the top 10 advantages that keep swimming in fashion, as always:

10. Flexibility

It doesn’t take rocket science to understand that swimming requires effort from almost every part of your body, be it the most obvious ones like hands and legs, or the shoulder muscles, the joints, etc. And we all know, the more we use’em, the more flexible they will be. Thus making you less prone to injuries (doesn’t mean you’ll become immortal or something!).

So, meanwhile, the water will relieve you in this scorching heat, you’ll be cured of muscles pains and jerks, some of which are of very serious nature, and must not be taken lightly under any circumstances.

9. Weight Control

This goes out to all the “I swear I’ll workout from tomorrow” people, Swim!

If you are too shy to go to the nearby gym or jog in the park, just bathe, in a pool, while swimming. We certainly hope you’re not shy of bathing.

You sure as hell don’t want to suffer a heart attack or diabetes, or anything of that sort! Its universal that obesity leads to everything that swimming and other healthy habits counter. So, be smart, act smart, go, swim.

8. Better Cholesterol

Without going into the complicated science behind the body and its relationship with cholesterol, let’s just say, it’s complicated.

Keeping it simple, in Layman’s terms, there are two types of cholesterols: a good one, and a bad one. And you are smart enough to know which one to appreciate, for which humans have already devised swimming, to lead’em towards a good life, with good cholesterol.

7. Minimal risk of Diabetes

Diabetes is mainly caused due to deficiency of insulin or if your cells are unable to respond to it. Since swimming makes sure that every part of the body needs to be working, it takes care of the insulin as well.

So, yea, you guessed it right, if you swim, you can be, without any worries, a frequent visitor to the nearbyhalwaai(sweets shop), and fulfill your appetite.

Swimming reduces the risk of being a diabetic, since it exposes you to the natural method of controlling and keeping everything regarding your body, in check, from improving blood pressure levels to improving your overall immunity and thus eliminating the risk of this monster. So, eat and swim your way out.

6. Relaxed and better brain

When you swim, you are far away from the city chaos; all the voices and noises seem to be vanished when you are in the pool.

Remember how Hrithik felt in ZNMD after the diving? It’s actually true. You become stress-free; consequently, the mind remains fresh, and thus better.

And we all need a much more relaxed brain in today’s world. You must have read about many cases of suicides and other unfortunate happenings, all having one thing in common, Stress. Also, in regards to this, a stressed mind can be considered as an accelerator of the actions in your body, whose effect is as serious as that of obesity and others.

5. Tones muscles & builds strength

It literally requires some extra effort to swim, which in turn engages your muscles in the action. And since it has already been pointed out that every organ of the body plays a role, so does every muscle. And since it’s a fact that muscles when exposed to an optimum level of stress tend to normalize and build themselves, thus toning your body, meanwhile filling your muscles with the ammo, of strength!

And with toned and strong muscles, our immunity system will rock, thus paving a way towards a much healthier future, for you and your dependents.

4. Better Blood Pressure

Once you let swimming take its course on you, you’ll notice a big difference in the way your body reacts to things. One of them being the controlled blood pressure, which you thought was uncontrollable without your pills! Since swimming relaxes your mind, you tend to be on the stress-free side of the curve, thus will handle everything with a cool head, which will help you relieve pressure from your heart, thus letting it pump at the sufficiently required pace. “High BP” is a common phrase in the urban population, which fails to take care of their body, by any means, let alone swimming. But, yea, it’s a fact, with the highest relieving quotient that swimming has, Blood is no more in that range of dangerous pressure!

3. All over body workout

While researching for this article, I zeroed upon an article named “Get 6 packs by swimming”, in a credible health journal. So, it seems to have been proven that swimming can effectively be your alternate to gymming. To name a few of the all over body workout points, lets just say, all the way from your calves to neck and hamstrings to trapezius, gets trained, simultaneously. So, no need to have muscle-specific days at gyms, swim and become eligible to do a salman khan thing anywhere you want, not just by the pool!

2. Healthy heart and lungs

Since we always listen to it first, lets talk about it first as well. While swimming you need all the parts of your body to work fine and extensively, thus it is the duty of your heart to supply blood to the entire body, as per requirement, thus using it comprehensively, hence making it healthier. And who doesn’t need a healthy heart, right?

Now, lungs. You breathe through your lungs, and when you inhale a certain amount of oxygen, and dive in, your lungs are at the laborious end, thus, being ready for harsh environments, meanwhile being a pro in normal ones.

Swimming also takes care of the asthma symptoms. Since it improves your lungs’ condition, it automatically takes charge of eliminating asthma from your dictionary, and your prescription!

1. Long life

Although the title of this point is more than enough to motivate you to swim, but let’s just dive into this one as well.

Consider the havoc that happened in the last few days in Uttarakhand, India. If not in the windy tides, but in the calm water as well, if some of the people knew how to swim, many could have been saved. So, apart from your own long life, you can save people, and stretch theirs.

Apart from that, briefing the above said points, with hell lot of flexibility, controlled weight, better cholesterol, no diabetes, better brain, toned body, and healthy heart, comes a longer life!

It’s logical, look at it like this:

If all the organs of your body are just perfect, how can you not have a long life! You, indeed, will have one.