Swimming Exercises & Weight Loss

Swimming is the fourth-best weight-loss exercise among approximately 100 exercises assessed by the Harvard Heart Letter. Running, bicycling and handball are the top three. Swimming is also ranked as the second-best exercise for improving your cardiovascular and pulmonary system by well-known exercise expert Dr. Kenneth Cooper. Cooper's exercise program for swimmers permits you to use any stroke, including the freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly.

Freestyle

Freestyle is the most popular and fastest swimming stroke. Vigorous freestyle swimming burns 863 calories per hour if you weigh 190 lbs., 704 calories per hour if you're 155 lbs. and 590 calories per hour if you're 130 lbs., according to "Calories Burned Per Hour," a study by the state of Wisconsin. You lose 1 lb. when you burn 3,500 calories. You're swimming vigorously if your heart rate is 80 to 90 percent of your maximum heart rate, which is 220 heartbeats per minute minus your age.

Freestyle swimming with a moderate effort burns 690, 563 and 472 calories per hour if you weigh 190, 155 and 130 lbs., respectively, according to "Calories Burned Per Hour." You're swimming moderately if your heart rate is 60 to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate. People who choose swimming as their primary exercise program should swim about 20 minutes per day, four times weekly, Cooper recommended in "Controlling Cholesterol The Natural Way."

Backstroke

Swimming has many advantages over other exercises, particularly if you use all four strokes in the individual medley. Swimming all four strokes gives you the chance to use so many muscle groups that it is a "total body conditioning program," according to Cooper. Swimming also causes very few muscle and bone problems and is "particularly good for people with arthritic or musculoskeletal problems," wrote Cooper.

Swimming the backstroke, the first stroke in the individual medley, helps you build up your shoulders as well as your back. It also burns the same amount of calories as moderate freestyle swimming.

Breaststroke

The breaststroke, the medley's second stroke and the slowest, entails moving your arms from in front of your head sideways to your shoulders while you're in a frog-like position. It is a great exercise for your hips and legs, according to "The Complete Guide to Walking." Swimming the breaststroke burns the same amount of calories hourly as vigorous freestyle swimming.

Butterfly

The butterfly, the medley's third stroke, is an excellent exercise for your chest, shoulders and upper back, wrote "Walking" author Mark Fenton. The butterfly requires extending both arms simultaneously far in front of your head while dolphin kicking. The butterfly is the "most difficult and exhausting stroke," according to The Columbia Encyclopedia. Wisconsin's "Calories Burned Per Hour" chart reports that you burn 949 calories per hour swimming the butterfly if you're 190 lbs., 774 calories hourly if you're 155 lbs. and 649 calories hourly if you're 130 lbs.