Swimming provides a full-body workout that burns calories, improves your cardiovascular health, boosts your mood and is easy on your joints and bones. To work various muscles of your body, swim laps alternating among the four main swimming strokes. Many gyms and fitness centers offer aquatic fitness classes such as water aerobics, recreational swimming teams and competitions.
Beginner
If you're new to swimming, take your time to build up your strength and endurance. Start off swimming five 50-meter laps at a slow and easy pace with long, smooth strokes. At the end of each set, take two or three minutes to rest before starting your next rep. As your fitness levels improve, increase the number of laps to 10 or increase the distance to 100 m then continue until you reach 300 m.
Intermediate
Start off by swimming 100 m at an easy pace and rest for 30 seconds to one minute. For the next 100 m, increase your speed to a moderately intensive pace and minimize your rest time between 30 and 45 seconds. Increase your intensity and decrease your recovery time until you reach 500 m. At 500 m, swim as fast as you can with no recovery in between laps. Cool down by swimming 500 m at an easy pace.
Advanced
Warm up then swim 100 to 200 m at a moderate pace using your stroke of choice. Jump out of the pool and perform as many pushups as you can for one minute. Afterward, spend another minute performing exercises that work your abdominals such as situps, crunches, planks, flutter kicks, mountain climbers or stepups. Return to the water and repeat the workout five times or as many times you can within 45 minutes.
Interval Training
Interval training involves alternating between high and low intensity levels during your workout. Spend five minutes to warm up your muscles swimming at a moderate pace. Next, swim as fast as you can until you finish the lap. To recover, return to a moderate pace for two to three minutes then switch back to a quicker pace. Other considerations include alternating between swimming and holding a buoy between your legs and swim using only your arms or use a kickboard to kick across the pool.
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