Is It Good To Swim Four Times A week? Big Yes
There are incredible results from swimming 4 times a week for your health and general wellness.
But this can depend on many things, starting with the intensity of the work that you put in those four days a week.
You can be sure there will be a lot of positive changes in your body. Some of the benefits include belly fat loss, a change in physique, body toning, and skin improvement.
You’ll enjoy better mental health and general body health improvement.
Just as we saw in our post on swimming everyday for a month, you will lose an incredible amount of weight.
While swimming three times a week will not tone your body as fast as swimming daily for a month would, it is still a good place to begin after you have learned how to swim by yourself or with a trainer.
Besides, not everyone has the time to swim daily.
Benefits of swimming 4 times
Swimming three times a week is good progress for a beginner. You can swim in the ocean or you could choose to swim in your above-ground pool.
Just make sure you swim for 90 minutes, which you can spread over three days, meaning 30 minutes for each session in the saltwater or chlorine swimming pool.
But why choose to swim three times a week? Why not two, four, or five times? Swimming three times a week is recommended for beginner swimmers.
What results can you expect when you swim three times in a week?
1. You improve your swimming skill and experience
This is enough to give you all the practice you need. In the early days of swimming, you learn things like treading water.
You will also learn how to float on your back, on your tummy, and, if possible, on your side. Try switching from one technique to another, and so on.
You will not learn everything by swimming three days a week. If you find that you cannot float in water, perhaps you are one of the small percentage of humanity that cannot float.
It is going to bring you noticeable changes. The changes will encourage you to put more work in your swimming progress.
Three times is neither too little nor too much for a beginner swimmer. It is just perfect!
Once you get total confidence in the water, you will feel you have outgrown the three sessions in a week. You can increase the days. Do this one at a time, until you are able to swim 5 days a week.
2. Good for your weekly cardio workout
Swimming gives a better cardio workout than running. The only other exercise with similar workout benefits is a rowing machine workout.
When you swim, you work out your entire body. This includes the core, the shoulders, upper back, the lower limbs, the arms and biceps. Nothing is left out.
Cardio also increases the heart rate, lung and circulatory health. More blood flows to different parts of the body.
It will carry oxygen and nutrients. You can even swim when there is a herpes outbreak without worrying about catching it.
Get more blood and nutrients flowing to the body. You will enjoy more strength, a strong heart and a well-nourished brain.
3. Swimming four days a week can boost your immunity
You can swim even when you are unwell. For instance, swimming when you have yeast infection can help you get better faster.
When you swim, the body releases more feel-good hormones. The level of the stress hormones such as cortisol falls.
Stress hormones stress the immune system, lowering your body’s defense against pathogens. The feel-good hormones help the body to flush out the free radicals and other toxins that bring illness.
4. It is recommended for seniors
Seniors do not need to swim as often as the young ones because they don’t have the energy. However, the benefits of swimming are too many to ignore.
Besides, engaging in cardio workouts such as swimming improves the entire body strength. The release of the feel-good hormones also improves the immune system.
Swimming will help strengthen the bones, improve balance and tone the body. Because of age and loss of collagen, the skin starts sagging.
Of course, swimming alone is not enough. You should combine it with a proper diet full of minerals, vitamins and proteins.
If you can swim more than three times a week, fine. If you cannot, make three sessions of 30 minutes each your baseline.
5. It boosts your metabolism
If you swim longer and harder, you will burn a lot of fat. And that is not all! When you swim often, you will get your body to build lean muscle. This is what boosts the metabolic rate, and your body will burn more fat.
Swimming is hungry work too, requiring a lot of energy. Therefore, when you hit the water, the body burns calories. If there are no calories to burn, it attacks its fat reserves.
More blood flow, higher metabolism and the reduction of fat stocks in the body help boost the immunity.
6. It prevents fast aging
If you are above middle age, make a point to swim at least three times a week. This has a lot of good for you because it delays aging.
One thing that it does is get the body to clear the free radicals that damage the skin, hair and cells. It also tones the skin, making it tighter.
It helps the nutrient- and oxygen-rich blood flow to various parts of the body. Your skin will look healthy and supple.
Swimming in cold water can help with other things that cause faster aging. It is a good way of overcoming stress and anxiety. These lead to a high level of stress hormones in your system, which causes faster aging.
Swimming twice a week benefits
Swimming twice a week has almost the same benefits as swimming three times a week. The results will be slower to manifest.
To get the best results, you can swim intensively every week. Fast-paced swimming can help your body burn up to 800 calories in 60 minutes! Thus, swimming at such a pace two times a week can help your body burn 1600 calories.
To lose 1 pound of weight, you need to burn 3500 calories. If you swim intensely twice a week, the result will be slightly less than 0.5 pounds shaved from your weight.
Also read: Dream of swimming in the ocean meaning
That’s incredible! If you do not have that much weight to lose, you can swim twice a week. Mind your diet since there is no sense in burning calories and then packing them in again.
As you burn calories, you will gain the other benefits of swimming. These include getting your weekly cardio dose.
How many times a week should I dip to tone up?
When you are swimming to lose weight, make a proper schedule that will challenge your body enough.
Experts say that swimming three to four days in a week should help you. But if you can do more than that, you will lose weight even faster.
To determine how many times you should swim in a week to meet your weight loss goals, take your weight down. How many pounds do you want to lose?
A regular swim, at regular speed, you will burn about 250 calories in 30 minutes. If you can swim for an hour, you can burn 500 calories.
You should intensify the swimming to burn more calories. You can burn up to 400 calories in 30 minutes of a fast-paced swim.
With this in mind, do the math about the number of calories you want to burn. You can then create a swimming schedule that will see you burn about 3500 calories in a week.
Losing weight requires much more than swimming or exercising. You will also have to cut calories from your diet.
Is swimming once a week enough?
Swimming once a week is better than no swimming at all. It has its health benefits too, the biggest being a fast heart rate and improved lung health.
It will also help to improve your stamina. Swimming helps to improve stamina, which can enhance your posture and balance on land.
Swimming just once in a week might not help much with weight loss, even if you make it an intense one hour of swimming. After all, it translates to swimming four times in a month. That’s too low.
Also read: swimming underwater dream meaning
If you have had an injury, swimming can help in healing. It enhances the blood transfer rate to all parts of the body. Since even the injured part gets the required nutrients and oxygen, it will heal faster.
Besides, you can also swim when you have bad knees. This is a low impact exercise, which has little to no impact on your joints. If you are recovering from injury, do not swim until the doctor says you can swim.
Is swimming 4 times a week enough?
Perhaps you only have time to swim three times a week. You might wonder whether it will be enough to give you all the benefits of swimming.
If possible, make three times a week your basics for swimming. In those three sessions, you will burn calories, you will increase your heart rate and lung health. Your body strength will improve.
Swimming thrice a week will also help you practice the different swimming strokes. The recommended swimming time is 30 minutes per session.
That is a guideline. As you continue building your stamina, you can swim longer and harder. Thus, the three sessions per week don’t have to be 30 minutes each. You can stretch them to 60 minutes.
We could say that swimming three times a week is enough if you make the sessions long enough. When you have swum for some time, your body hits a plateau stage.
It is best to keep varying the swim strokes, swim speed and so on. You can also learn tricks such as jumping into the pool.
Also read my articles on:
Why do you float on the Dead Sea naturally?
Is it safe to swim in the ocean with a herpes outbreak?
Final Thoughts
Swimming 3 times a week will reward you with incredible health benefits. Swimming in cold water has many effects. They include fast calorie burning and a resetting of the metabolism.
Open-water swimming is more challenging and can sap your energy fast. You should only do it in a group of other people.
Have you been struggling with weight, after having a Cesarean Section? Take up swimming three or more times a week. Wait for at least six weeks before you start swimming.
Swimming is a lot of fun for toddlers, seniors, people recuperating from illness, and so on. That’s why everyone should take it up.
However, for weight loss, combine regular swimming with a proper diet. It is going to work miracles for your calorie-burning efforts.
Remember, do not stay with the three-times-a-week swim sessions for the rest of your life. Swimming longer and harder will give you awesome benefits.