When you swim, you expend energy not just moving forward, but also in every movement of your body. Though the water makes you buoyant, it also adds resistance to your workout, making swimming a joint-friendly, yet strenuous sport. The calories you expend when swimming depends on how long you swim and the intensity of the workout.
Basic Calorie Expenditure
Swimming laps for one hour burns 511 calories in one hour for a 160-lb. swimmer, according to the MayoClinic.com. Swimmers who weigh more burn more calories; for example, 637 calories per hour for a 200-lb. swimmer and 763 for a 240-lb. swimmer.
The Impact of Intensity and Stroke
However, the vigor with which you work out significantly affects your caloric expenditure. Harvard Medical School states that vigorous swimming burns as much as 744 calories per hour for a person weighing 155 lbs. Stroke also has an impact, with backstroke burning the least at 600 calories per hour for a person weighing 155 lbs. and butterfly or freestyle burning 818 calories per hour for that same swimmer. If you weigh more, you burn a higher number of calories.
Considerations
It's difficult to exactly define how many calories you will burn when you swim due to the variations in intensity, body weight and stroke. The more important part of the caloric equation is consistency. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend 150 minutes of physical activity every week to maintain your current weight. To lose 1 lb., you need to expend 3,500 more calories than you take in with your daily diet. In addition, the CDC recommends muscle-strengthening activity twice per week to keep you healthy.
Work Out Routine
Swimming requires little equipment -- just goggles, sunscreen and a suit. In addition, it's gentle on the joints, allowing a freer range of motion than some other activities. It provides constant resistance, helping build muscle and skeletal strength. Keep in mind, though, that it does not build your skeleton as the sport does not include impact. Include at least one weight-bearing activity each week to maintain bone mineral density. Though running and walking seem obvious choices, strength training is actually more effective at maintaining bone mineral density. Strength training three times per week actually increases bone mineral density in older adults, so add this to your swimming routine for an optimum health routine.
References
- Mayo Clinic; Exercise for Weight Loss; Calories Burned in One Hour; December 2009
- Harvard Medical School; Calories Burned in 30 Minutes For People of Three Different Weights; July 2004
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; How Much Physical Activity Do Adults Need?; March 2011
- "The Sport Journal"; Training to Improve Bone Density in Adults: A Review and Recommendations; Ed McNeely
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