How To Build Muscle With Swimming
- 22 Aug 2024
Swimming is a full-body workout that engages a lot of different muscle groups, including the upper body, lower body, core and abs. By swimming on a regular basis and repeatedly exposing your body to that resistance created when moving through the water, you will start to build muscle.
Upper body: Swimming helps to strengthen the muscles in your arms, chest, shoulders and upper back. Freestyle stroke and butterfly stroke are particular strokes that are effective for toning this area. Breaststroke also can tone your upper body because of the focus on pulling and pushing the water. Breaststroke mainly targets your chest, shoulders, triceps and also your legs.The backstroke will focus on your back muscles but also engages your arm muscles.
Lower body: Swimming involves a lot of kicking, of course, in all of the swimming strokes. This engages your quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, and calf muscles and helps increase muscle tone and strengthen them.
Core and Abs: Rotational movements in swimming strokes like the freestyle and butterfly engages your core muscles, lower back muscles, helping to build a strong and stable core.
Swimmers also use equipment within the pool to enhance their workouts. Kickboards can be used to help with building lower body and leg strength, isolating this area so you can concentrate on your leg movements and stability when you swim. You can also use training fins and pull buoys for this.
The great thing about swimming is that no matter your ability or fitness level, you can use the resistance from the water to help build up muscle. The different styles of swimming and repetition of movements all play a part in increasing muscle mass.
To help increase your muscle gain, you should also incorporate dryland training, proper nutrition, and recovery. Incorporating these different elements into your training regime can help to improve muscle growth.
Learn more:
Why you should begin dryland training
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