23/01/2025
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What Are the 12 Important Benefits of Swimming?
Medical Author: Rohini Radhakrishnan, ENT, Head and Neck Surgeon
Medical Reviewer: Pallavi Suyog Uttekar, MD
Disease and Condition: Walking
12 Important Benefits

Some 12 important benefits of swimming include weight loss, increased strength and muscle definition, flexibility, improved asthma, reduce stress, and more.
Swimming is a fun way to exercise if people find hitting the gym or other forms of exercise difficult or boring. It is also a great way to workout for indoors or outdoors. Swimming does not require any equipment and a person can swim in any safe water body, including natural water bodies or temperature-controlled indoor or outdoor swimming pools. Swimming has often been called the perfect exercise because it has several health benefits, including increased longevity. Research has shown that swimmers had a 50% lower death rate compared to runners, walkers, and those who were not active. It is a great form of aerobic exercise/cardio without much impact on the joints, hence reducing the risk of joint damage and preventing worsening of damaged joints in conditions like arthritis. Swimming is an effective exercise for any age group.
What Are the 12 Important Benefits of Swimming?
Some 12 important benefits of swimming include:
Weight loss
Swimming is a great way to burn calories and lose weight. Depending on the type of swimming style and intensity, swimming can even burn more calories than running and several other cardio exercises. It’s possible to burn 100 calories with freestyle swimming or 150 calories with butterfly stroke in 10 minutes. A 10-minute run burns around 100 calories. Therefore, a 30-minute intense swimming session can burn around the same or more calories than a 5k run.
Increased strength and muscle definition
Swimmers improve joint strength, muscle strength, and muscle defi