Swim For a Hot Body!

Lap up the health and beauty benefits of swimming this summer

There's no kinder, gentler place to work out than in the gravity-defying embrace of water. Swimming is easy on your joints, burns tonnes of kilojoules and makes you feel like a kid on summer holidays, all while giving you grown-up fitness and muscle tone.

Water is about 12 times as dense as air, so each stroke and kick is a mini strength-training exercise. When you swim, every muscle in your body is called into action as you push against the water's resistance. What's more, regular swimming can make you more flexible, something active women struggle with as they get older. Since you weigh only 10 to 15 per cent of your land weight in the water, your arms and legs feel lighter and your range of motion increases as you move. Swimming also lengthens your body to its fullest potential, strengthening and stretching otherwise tight, shortened muscles.

The old myth that swimming doesn't burn off fat because your heart doesn't work as hard and your body hangs on to your excess 'insulation' in the cool water is just that—a myth. It's true your working heart rate can be reduced by as many as 17 beats, or 10 to 15 per cent of your normal working rate on land. This is because your body temperature is lower in the water, which automatically lowers your heart rate. However, this doesn't mean you're not getting a good workout. Your lungs actually work harder against the pressure of the water and get an even better workout than on dry land. Your muscles also put in overtime keeping you afloat–as a result, you're burning as many kilojoules and conditioning your heart just as much as most dry-land exercises.

Swimming is also the best way to perk up a sagging bottom. You see those tight buns in the tank suits of professional swimmers because every kick is powered by the glutes (bottom muscles); every lap firms and lifts those muscles.*

Swimming Stats

Here's what you can expect from a 30-minute water workout:

Kilojoules Burned: 1,420

Muscles Worked: trapezius (across the neck and back), rhomboids (between the shoulder blades), pectorals (chest), deltoids (shoulders), gluteus maximus (bottom) and hip flexors (front and top of thighs)

Psychological Benefits: Cutting through the water is sensual, stress relieving and a welcome silencing of the usual workday noise

• Excerpted from Selene Yeager's Perfectly Fit

GET STARTED in swimming with expert advice from Prevention's Lisa Champion. Click here

GET MORE from your swim with tips from Prevention's Donna Aston. Click here

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