What muscles does swimming exercise?

Muscle training is a method that many friends use to develop muscles, but there are so many methods of muscle training. We generally perform different exercises according to different parts of the training, and we also need to choose the intensity of the exercise according to our physical condition. The method of muscle training is particularly important. Some friends also particularly like swimming, so what muscles does swimming train? Let’s take a brief look at it below.

Swimming is about building whole body strength

Arm strength: Push-ups are a good way to exercise. Do 20-30 push-ups every day. Lifting dumbbells is also an option. If you don't have dumbbells at home, you can fill empty beverage bottles with sand. Each bottle weighs between 3 and 5 pounds. Waist and abdominal strength: Sit-ups are the most effective way to exercise. Leg strength: lunges, frog jumps, and vertical jumps are all good methods.

Different swimming styles exercise different parts of the body

Breaststroke – leg strength. The thigh movement method for freestyle and backstroke is to whip up and down, only breaststroke uses kicking and clamping. The former can make the legs longer, while the latter uses the quadriceps femoris more, so it is very effective in strengthening leg strength.

Butterfly stroke – chest strength. When doing butterfly stroke, the arms paddle inwards, similar to doing chest expansion exercises. It puts more force on the pectoralis major, dorsal dilators, and rectus abdominis, and has the best training effect.

Freestyle – arm strength. When swimming freestyle, the biceps and triceps in the upper arms use more force, which can effectively exercise the arm muscles and also has a certain effect on improving the strength of the shoulder muscles.

Backstroke - back strength. When doing backstroke, the back expanders will exert more force, which can stretch the back muscles. In addition, when doing backstroke, you need to lift your hips and glide, which is also a kind of exercise for your buttocks.

You can choose your favorite swimming style and focus on strengthening the strength of a certain part of the body, which can also improve your swimming speed.

Do stretching exercises before and after swimming

When swimming, stretching is not only a good warm-up exercise, but also the best relaxation exercise after swimming. It can protect you from sports injuries such as cramps and strains caused by swimming, and can also relax tense muscles throughout the body. The same applies to stretching as in other exercises.

Exercise method:

1. Leg muscle stretching. Sit with the soles of your feet close together, knees pushed outward and as close to the ground as possible, grab your ankles with both hands, hold this position, count to 10, relax your body, and repeat 3 times.

2. Shoulder muscle stretch. Stretch one arm upward first, then bend the forearm behind the head, relax the body, grab the elbow behind the head with the opposite hand, and slowly pull to the opposite side. Hold for 15 seconds.

Through the above introduction, we now know what muscles swimming exercises, and we also know how to exercise the muscles of the whole body through swimming. We can carry out targeted exercises when swimming normally. However, we need to pay attention to safety when swimming for fitness, and we also need to cooperate with equipment training.