No matter your fitness level, swimming offers a lot of potential health benefits.
If other high-impact activities (like running or tennis) have resulted in overuse injuries to your knees, hips, or ankles, you may have been told to try swimming. “Swimming is a great option for people with joint problems and provides another form of exercise for anybody with access to suitable water,” says James Cotter, Ph.D., professor of exercise and environmental physiology at the University of Otago in New Zealand.
The benefits start as soon as you jump into the pool, and extend well beyond the time you leave the pool.
“The unique properties of water have immediate physical benefits, like pain modulation,” says Andrew Power, water well-being specialist at Swim England, a governing body in the United Kingdom for swimming. (He advises Swim England on health and well-being, as it relates to swimming, and in previous roles developed health interventions, mainly for people with long-term health conditions.) Research has demonstrated not only short-term but also long-term benefits to mental health, with longer-term benefits including potentially reducing the risk of early death, supporting healthy aging, and giving individuals who find it difficult to be active on land another way to exercise.
How much swimming do you need to do to reap the benefits? Any swimming (or other physical activity) is better than nothing, but you’ll get more benefits the more you swim, Power says.
The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans (PDF) recommend adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise every week, plus do muscle-strengthening exercises twice per week. If you want to use swimming as your form of exercise, try working up to 30 minutes of lap swimming three times a week, and using the other days of the week to do other forms of exercise, like resistance training and walking, says Grant Radermacher, a doctor of chiropractic and sports chiropractor with Ascent Chiropractic in Brookfield, Wisconsin, and a former collegiate swimmer.
But if you’re new to swimming, or new to swimming as a workout, start slow. If you do too much too quickly, you could get injured — even with a low-impact sport like swimming, Radermacher says. Three signs to watch for that would indicate you have a potential injury versus normal post-exercise soreness can include:
- Pain that lasts longer than 72 hours
- Pain that’s acute and sudden
- Pain that’s throbbing or radiating
Ready to take the plunge? Here are nine reasons to dive in:
1. Swimming Can Help You Live Longer
Studies show that regular exercise, swimming included, may increase your longevity. According to a 2017 report commissioned by Swim England, swimmers had a 28 percent lower risk of early death and a 41 percent lower risk of death due to heart disease and stroke compared with those who don’t swim.
2. Swimming Can Help Keep You Lean
Swimming is a full-body workout. “Swimming engages everything from the arms, shoulders, and legs to the core, glues, and back,” Radermacher says. That means you get a lot of metabolic benefits for your cardio buck, he explains.
In an hour, a 155-pound person can burn about 432 calories swimming versus about 266 calories walking at a moderate pace, according to Harvard Medical School. A study published in 2021 in BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation found that 16 weeks of swimming led to significant reductions in body fat and BMI.
3. Swimming Boosts Heart Health
Like other forms of aerobic exercise, swimming can improve your cardiovascular fitness. “Swimming allows the heart to become stronger and the lungs to become more efficient in utilizing oxygen,” says Brian J. Krabak, MD, clinical professor of rehabilitation, orthopedics, and sports medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle and National Team Physician for USA Swimming.
Research shows swimming has been linked to improvements in hypertension, blood pressure, and other markers of cardiovascular health.
4. Those Laps Can Strengthen Your Lungs
If you’ve been diagnosed with a lung condition like asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, you might like hearing that the lungs are one of the biggest benefactors of swimming, according to Swim England’s report. “Swimming trains the muscles involved with respiration, meaning it can enhance lung volume and aid breathing technique,” says Power, who wasn’t involved with the Swim England report. Plus, if you have asthma, the pool provides an ideal exercise setting, as it’s humid, warm, and, usually, a low-pollen environment. But if you have a lung or other condition that could interfere with your ability to exercise, check with your doctor before starting a swim routine.
5. Swimming May Boost Brain Power
Exercise, in general, has been associated with improving cognition, but when researchers studied the specific benefits of swimming on cognition, they found a unique benefit.
In one small study from the journal Physiological Reports, participants who did a 20-minute, moderate-intensity swim processed visual information and responded faster on cognitive tests conducted right before and immediately after their swim. Although it’s a small effect (about 4 percent on average), the fact that the workout made a measurable difference after just one occasion is notable, Dr. Cotter says. Another study published in Physiological Reports linked swimming with improved short- and long-term memory in mice. Both studies are somewhat preliminary (given the size and that the second one was an animal study), but the researchers of both concluded that the data suggest further study is warranted.
6. The Water Workout May Put You in a Better Mood
All exercise can be a mood booster. But a study published in 2003 in the Journal of Psychology found that a single session of swimming improved mood even more than a single session of aerobic dance (similar improvements in mood were linked with yoga and Feldenkrais movement, a body awareness practice, in the population of women studied). “Due to the release of happiness chemicals in the brain, specifically endorphins dopamine and serotonin, regular swimming can reduce stress, lower anxiety, and combat depression,” Radermacher says.
7. Swimming May Help You Sleep
Improved sleep is a perk of sticking to just about any exercise routine. And that includes swimming. “Exercise helps reset your body’s internal clock and restores your natural circadian rhythm,” Radermacher says.
According to the National Sleep Foundation’s 2013 Sleep in America poll (PDF), which focused on sleep and exercise, people who participated in aerobic exercise reported sleeping better; 76 to 83 percent of those who did light, moderate, or vigorous exercise reported very good or fairly good sleep quality versus 56 percent of non-exercisers. In the survey, swimming was categorized as a type of vigorous aerobic activity. What’s more, exercisers spent more time in restorative deep sleep.
8. For People With Chronic Pain, Swimming May Help
Conditions like arthritis and fibromyalgia often come with reduced mobility and in many cases, short- or long-term pain. This is where swimming can help. “A range of aquatic activities (including swimming) have been shown to help people with musculoskeletal conditions improve physical function and quality of life,” Power says.
One study showed that in people with osteoarthritis, a three-month swimming program (participants swam for 45 minutes three days per week) led to less joint pain and stiffness, as well as improved muscle strength. The buoyancy of the water adds resistance (making water workouts challenging), but is low-impact at the same time, Dr. Krabak says. And that’s ideal if you have stiffness or joint pain. If you do have fibromyalgia or more severe pain, consider aquatic physical therapy to help get you started and conditioned for possible lap swimming.
9. Swimming Is Good for Bone Health
Roughly 54 million Americans have osteoporosis or low bone mass, which increases their risk for osteoporosis, according to the Bone Health and Osteoporosis Foundation (PDF) — and among individuals 50 and up, 1 in 2 women will break a bone because of osteoporosis versus 1 in 4 men.
While resistance training and high-impact activities have always been the gold standard for improving bone density, swimming (if you do enough of it) may also help. A review published in 2020 in BioMed Research International found that three to six hours of swimming per week improved bone mineral density in postmenopausal women, especially among long-term swimmers. Though it’s worth noting that there was no benefit to bone health in those who were swimming less than three hours per week.
