Swimming is an excellent low-impact exercise that can help you strengthen almost every muscle group in your body. However, swimming requires a lot of muscles and movements that you wouldn’t typically use when you walk around on land, so a great deal of practice is needed, and you may feel sore early on!
Just like any kind of sport, you need to warm up your body and always make sure it’s ready for any tedious activity. For golf, you would need to perform golf exercises, for basketball, you need to exert effort in circuit training, but since swimming is a watersport, exercises tend to be more difficult, but we’ll help you through it in this article.
There are several exercises to improve swimming available, and we’ll outline how you can use them to get better at swimming. Also, the type of pool you use can impact whether or not you swim better – we’ll go over several that are excellent choices below. Read on to get to our tips for getting better at swimming now!
Three Easy Exercises to Improve Swimming
You can focus on one area at a time to help you learn how to swim better. Dedicate time to each area of your body, and go as quickly or as slowly as you like.
1 – Planks
You don’t have to do all of your exercises in the pool to strengthen your body. One effective way to strengthen your glutes, arms, shoulders, upper and lower body is with planks. Position yourself like you’re going to attempt a pushup with your arms grounded slightly wider than your shoulders. Squeeze your glutes to stabilise yourself and use your toes to hold your feet. Your head should be in line with your back, and you hold this position for 20 seconds. Your legs shouldn’t hold any of the pressure. Planks, loved and recommended by (almost) all PTs, can significantly help you with getting better at swimming.
2 – Warmups
Before you get into the pool, you should be performing warmups to loosen your muscles up. This session should stay under 30 minutes. Do prone holds, stretch your hamstrings, do push-ups, burpees, and sit-ups. You can do this right alongside the pool, or you can do it in your home before getting into your pool. This reduces the risk of developing cramps.
3 – Core Exercises
Your core is the one place that will go through the biggest workout when you swim, so it makes sense to strengthen it any way you can. Start with the bird dog position. Get on your hands and knees and make your spine flat. Extend your right leg and left arm out, keeping them below your spine. Hold this position for five seconds before switching limbs. For V-sits, start in a seated position before raising your legs to a 45° angle. Extend your arms out to your knees and hold for 30 seconds. Strengthening can contribute to you getting better at swimming.
Six Big Benefits of Exercising in the Pool
There are several benefits that come with exercising in the pool or any body of water. These benefits are why many forms of therapy take place in the water, especially if people have injuries and they need to restrengthen their muscles. We’ve picked out the biggest ones and outlined them below.
- Low Impact – Unlike traditional exercise that can put more stress on your joints, swimming is very low impact. Water gives you buoyancy. This means you float once you enter the water. When you do your exercises, the water will save your joints from excess stress and reduce your risk of injury.
- Built-In Resistance – When you push against the water, you meet resistance. This resistance makes your body work harder to complete whatever exercise routine you have set up. You can adjust your resistance level depending on what you’re doing and the water depth. Deeper water has more resistance than more shallow water.
- Slowly Increase the Intensity – Water exercising is beginner-friendly. It allows you to start out slow and gradually work your way up to more complicated routines. To do this, you increase your time in the pool and take shorter rest breaks between exercise sets. You can also go to a greater resistance level.
- Tones Muscles – Working out in the water allows you to tone a huge range of muscles that you may not work out if you exercise on land. You can focus on more than one muscle group at once as well, and it helps keep your joints nimble because it’s so low-impact.
- Whole Body Support – No one wants to hurt their back because this can set you up for a lifetime of problems. Water exercises help to protect your body, particularly your back and spine. The water will support your weight and keep it off of your spine.
- Heart Healthy – Swimming laps, water jogging, or other water exercises are all aerobic. They get your heart pumping faster and encourage your vascular system to work. In turn, this can improve your heart health. Water also has a naturally cooling effect that lets you exercise for longer periods without feeling uncomfortably hot or sweaty.
Consider Investing in a Lap Pool
Lap pools are designed for swimming and swimming laps in your own lap pool can become an excellent way of getting better at swimming. We have several great lap pool models available at Compass Pools. They feature a narrow design that fits into more versatile areas, and they’re big enough to help you practice your swimming strokes. You can have this pool right outside your door, and this gives you the freedom to practice your swimming in the comfort of your own home. Spend the holidays at home and swim every day!
First up is the Fastlane lap pool design. This pool is excellent for serious swimmers because it offers lengths up to 30m. There are also two standard lengths coming in at 12 and 10m. This is more than enough space to help you clean up your strokes and improve your swimming speed. The flat bottom allows you to swim unhindered, and you can add optional external steps in several places along the pool wall.
Locate Your Nearest Compass Pools Dealer to Design Your Lap Pool
If you’re ready to try getting better at swimming in your own home, locate a Compass Pools dealer near you. They’ll be happy to answer all of your questions and help you decide which lap pool would work best for your needs. With dozens of colours and sizes available, you’ll get a pool you can’t wait to use for years to come!