Aerobic exercise such as swimming laps or performing water aerobics can help you burn calories and shed pounds. Exercise represents an essential part of weight loss and maintenance. In order to maintain your weight, you must achieve caloric balance, burning as many calories as you consume each day. In order to lose weight, you must create a caloric deficit, burning more calories than you consume each day. Swimming can help you burn those calories.
Time Line
Weight loss should occur gradually, at a rate of about 1 to 2 lbs. per week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People who lose weight more rapidly often have less success keeping the weight off than those who lose it slowly and steadily, according to the CDC. To lose weight at a rate of 1 lb. per week, you'll need to burn about 500 calories more than you eat each day, according to the CDC. To lose weight at a rate of 2 lbs. per week, you'll need to burn about 1,000 calories more than you eat each day.
Calories Burned
Swimming laps provides the most efficient way to burn calories in the pool. One hour of lap swimming burns about 763 calories for a 240-lb. adult, 637 calories for a 200-lb. adult and 511 calories for a 160-lb. adult, according to MayoClinic.com. The highest calorie-burning stroke is the butterfly, which burns about 150 calories in 10 minutes, according to the "Daily Mail." The freestyle burns about 100 calories in 10 minutes. The backstroke burns about 80 calories in 10 minutes and the breaststroke about 60. An hour of water aerobics can burn about 436 calories for a 240-lb. adult, 364 calories for a 200-lb. adult and 292 calories for a 160-lb. adult. Adding short intervals of higher intensity effort to the routine will burn more calories.
Compared to Other Exercises
Water aerobics provides moderate aerobic exercise, and swimming laps provides moderate to intense aerobic exercise. The more intense your effort during a workout, the more calories you will burn. One hour of lap swimming burns more calories than one hour of walking, biking or playing baseball, and about the same number of calories as one hour of cross-country skiing, rowing or backpacking, according to MayoClinic.com. More vigorous activities that burn more calories than lap swimming include running, rollerblading, working out on a stair climber and playing tennis.
Health Benefits
Aerobic workouts such as swimming or performing water aerobics provide many important health benefits. If you get the recommended 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise each week, you face a reduced risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and some cancers, according to the CDC. Regular physical activity can also boost your mood, prevent depression and promote deeper sleep. Lap swimming and water aerobics provide non-impact, non-weight-bearing exercise that may be safer than high-impact exercise for adults with osteoporosis or frail joints.
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