Is Running or Swimming Better for Losing Belly Fat?
The years 2020 and 2021 were encumbered by lockdowns due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
As a result, after the lockdowns ended, many people found themselves with a few to several extra pounds they did not need.
When you are considering losing weight, you would think about the best methods for the same. Swimming or running exercises are the top things to do to lose belly fat.
Both of these exercises offer many health benefits. From cardio to burning fat, toning muscles, and leaving you fit, you cannot go wrong with either.
Does swimming burn fat?
There is no doubt that second to consuming a calorie-poor diet, swimming is one of the best ways to lose weight. Studies show that swimmers have a lower body fat percentage than most people who do not swim.
In addition to burning body fat, swimming also offers some of the best cardio workouts. Cardio is good for increasing your heart rate and enhancing your lung health.
So, if you have been asking, will swimming burn fat? Of course, it will.
Here are more things that you might need to know about swimming to burn fat:
Does swimming give you a flat stomach?
For working out all the muscles in the body, you might want to try swimming. However, swimming alone is not going to give you six-pack abs.
To lose belly fat, you need to involve your core fully when swimming. That can help! You might also find that not every swimming technique is good for losing belly fat. Some are more effective than others.
When you swim, you fight the resistance of the water. Therefore, you involve almost all the muscle groups in the body.
So yes, swimming does burn belly fat, and indeed, it can give you a flat stomach. The one thing that swimming alone might not do is make your six-pack abs as pronounced as you would like.
How does swimming burn fat?
Swimming helps you burn fat by engaging all the muscle groups in the body, and at the same time, it raises the heart rate a great deal. High heart rate and good lung health are some of the things that enhance fat metabolism.
Thus, instead of eating all the time to get calories, which the body will convert to energy, you can swim and get the body to start burning down the fat for energy.
How you can lose more weight with swimming
To help your body burn fat when swimming, we recommend a few important things. For instance, you should swim in the morning before eating breakfast.
Since swimming is an energy-intensive activity, your body will turn to the fat reserves in your body.
However, depending on your metabolism, you might feel too hungry to complete the intended swimming laps on an empty stomach. If that is the case, take a protein snack, a protein bar, or something.
Does water reduce belly fat? It does, and it is quite effective. However, it takes a bit longer. Thus, you should combine it with other exercises, such as weight training.
Water exercises for belly fat
Does water reduce belly fat? It does, but you can help it along by engaging in water exercises for belly fat. You can try walking in the water.
The resistance of the water will help your muscles work out harder. You can also try treading or marching in water.
Another thing that might help is water crunches. They are so easy to do. For instance, you can float on your back, of course, with the help of a flotation device.
Lift your legs and try to bring your legs towards your chest, as close as they will come.
While every swimming stroke can help you lose belly fat, you should concentrate more on using backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly stroke. These three swimming techniques engage the core muscles fully.
Swim harder: swimming or running to lose belly fat
It is one thing to swim for an aerobic workout and it is entirely another to swim to burn belly fat. However, the regular daily swim will just not do. You will need to swim harder and longer.
Many people ask: Why do swimmers have abs? It is because the core muscles are fully engaged when you are swimming.
Professional swimmers also swim harder and longer. Consider increasing the laps that you swim daily. Also, consider increasing your swimming speed and alternating the swimming techniques.
The most important thing is to vary your swimming speed. You do not want to make your body get used to swimming with the same technique, speed, and distance all the time.
If this happens, you hit a plateau stage where swimming to get ripped does not work anymore.
How long does it take to get abs from swimming? We cannot say a certain timespan for sure. The reason for this is that it varies a lot depending on the swimming style, the power you put in your strokes, and the distance.
It also depends on your diet. Swimming several laps every day isn’t going to help your abs if you hog junk the rest of the day.
Eat clean, swim harder and longer, and in a month or two, you can get a flat belly. Soon after, you can start working on your abs.
How much swimming equals walking?
So much about the benefits of swimming… How does it compare to running?
But first, we have to answer a burning question: is swimming as good as walking? We can tell you that swimming is way better than walking. When you walk at a moderate pace for 60 minutes, you can burn up to 300 calories, perhaps slightly more.
When you swim at a moderate rate, you can burn slightly more than 420 calories in 60 minutes! Thus, you can see that these two types of cardio exercises do not compare on the same pedestal.
At least, not always! But …
This does not always hold true for all swimmers. For instance, using the freestyle swimming stroke can burn the same amount of calories as running on a treadmill at 6.5 MPH pace for the same length of time.
Thus, you will see many sources saying that indoor running and swimming in the pool for 60 minutes burn the same number of calories.
In some instances, running can beat swimming for belly fat loss. When you swim, the buoyancy of the water helps you move along, so you might not burn as many calories as someone who is running or walking.
Thus, to burn the same number of calories that you burn walking, you might have to swim harder and longer.
Swimming or running for fat loss: Vital things
Before you swim, walk, or run, find out what works well for your body. And flow along with it.
If swimming longer and harder works for you, by all means, knock yourself out. If it is walking and running, go for it.
Also, bodies respond differently to exercise. For example, men are more predisposed to making muscle. Thus, the swimming body transformation effects for female swimmers might not be as fast as that of men.
But the best overall thing is to combine swimming and running. That way, you can reap the benefits of each type of workout.
For both running and walking, try high-intensity interval training. This is key to achieving fast weight loss. HiiT helps your body not fall into a routine or plateau stage.
Research shows that it is really the short bursts of speed that burn the fat and tone your body rather than the long endurance swim laps or run miles.
Take cardio workouts at least four days a week. Of course, you know that swimming, walking, and running are some of the top cardio exercises.
If you can toss in elliptical bike workouts, rowing, and crossfit training into the mix, you will lose weight much faster.
Is swimming good for a flat stomach?
Your mid-section is used a lot when you are swimming. You keep the abs engaged throughout, since this is where the power of each swimming stroke comes from.
Therefore, it is inevitable that you will tone your abdomen and burn belly fat. It will not happen overnight, but as you swim more often in your saltwater or chlorine swimming pool, you will start seeing results.
Keep varying your swimming style since different strokes burn calories differently. For instance, for every 30 minutes you swim using the breaststroke, you are going to burn 340 calories.
If you swim using the butterfly stroke, you will burn up to 380 calories per hour. Imagine that this is only 30 minutes. Now, if you are really determined to lose weight, increase your swimming sessions. Make them longer, and you will see wonderful results.
Instead of making your swimming sessions 30 minutes daily, you can increase them to 45 minutes per day and swim for at least 5 days a week.
Also, try to incorporate HiiT in your swimming sessions. HiiT is the true Holy Grail of aerobic exercises. You can swim intensely for 60 seconds, then slow your pace.
Keep varying your swimming pace back and forth. This is going to increase your heart rate and improve your lung health.
How much swimming to lose belly fat?
Swimming trainers get this question all the time. People ask how much swimming they need to do to lose weight.
Usually, swimming sessions are 30 minutes a day. But this is not cast in stone. Besides, Olympic and professional swimmers swim much longer than that.
We said that swimming for 30 minutes only using the breaststroke method burns 340 calories per hour. Of course, this is the average, since it will vary from person-to-person, depending on their weight.
If you can swim longer, for 45 to 60 minutes, you will burn more calories. You could also swim more times, say, about 5 days a week.
Also, try the fat-burning swimming techniques so that you can maximize the rate of calorie burning. Once you enter the fat-burning zone, try hard to keep the heart rate constant at that level for several minutes. That way, the body will burn more fat.
Can running give you a flat stomach?
To know whether you should choose swimming or running to lose belly fat, you need to know which can burn more calories.
If you run for 30 minutes, you will burn a minimum of 200 calories. However, if you keep varying your style, you could burn up to 500 calories.
But there are some outstanding differences between running and swimming to burn calories. When you run, you are mostly facing air resistance. This is less resistance than you face when you are swimming. Water has more resistance!
Therefore, you are forced to work harder and thus burn more calories. Besides, swimming gives a better cardiovascular workout than running.
Also read:
Does water go inside you when you swim?
How to stop toddler from swallowing pool water
Can you swim in the ocean while pregnant?
Conclusion
What should you choose between running and swimming to lose belly fat? The best thing is to do both of them on alternating days of the week.
That way, the muscles that you could not engage in swimming, you can run.
And vice versa!
Our verdict is that swimming and running burn calories at almost the same rate. But swimming is a notch higher because it also tones many muscle groups better than running.
Thus, a person who runs will have to follow up with more toning exercises than a person who swims.
Finally, can you be too fat to go swimming? Not really. If you can’t swim, train with a qualified person so that you can enjoy the health benefits of swimming.