Swimming 101: The Fitness Benefits

Swimming is an excellent total body exercise and offers no joint impact or any such stress on the body like many other types of activities. Swimming workouts are perfect for any kind of rehab, muscle endurance, burning unwanted calories, controlling breathing, and a good way to switch up the workouts in general.

There are six types of strokes, all of which work almost every muscle in the body:

The Free-style stroke (with flutter kick) mainly works the deltoids, hips, quads, and hamstrings.

The Butterfly Stroke (with Dolphin kick) focuses on the complete lower body, deltoids, and chest muscles.

The Side Stroke (with scissor kick) mainly works the triceps, hips, quads, and hamstrings.

The Back Crawl (with flutter kick) emphasizes the deltoids, back, hips, quads, and hamstrings.

The Breast stroke (with “frog kick”) mainly targets the chest, triceps, and complete lower body.

The Elementary Back Stroke focuses on the deltoids and complete lower body. I have put together a list of exercises to help with your swimming and recommend doing three sets of twenty repetitions of each movement. Congratulations to Michael Phelps for his great accomplishment.

8 Exercises To Target Each Major Muscle Group

External Cable Rotation (Deltoid)

Internal Cable Rotation (Deltoid)

Cable Chest Press (Chest)

Leg Raise (Hips)

Leg Curl (Hamstrings)

Leg Extension (Quads)

Hip Adduction (Inner Thigh)

Hip Abduction (Outer Thigh)