Does Swimming Burn Belly Fat? (Let’s Investigate)

Are you fond of spending time in the water? Swimming isn’t only a fun sport that you can indulge in for hours; it is also a great exercise that can tone your body muscles. It also improves the condition of your heart.

If you are desirous to lose belly fat and get a flat and toned stomach,  swimming will help you get a toned and chiseled figure. However, you must try to team your swimming exercise with the right kind of diet to reap the most benefits out of it.

This article will give you an insight into how swimming is beneficial in weight loss and what are the common exercises that will propel this loss of weight from the belly region. Read on to find out.

Does Swimming Burn Belly Fat?

Yes, swimming is a great cardio exercise that can help to get rid of belly fat. However, it is not possible to lose fat from certain specific body parts. Studies have shown that “spot reduction is a myth.” When you lose fat, you lose fat from the entire body and not just your targeted areas.

The number of calories that you will burn by swimming depends on factors like the duration for which you indulge in the activity, the intensity of exercising, the kind of swim strokes, the weight of the swimmer, and so on.

If a person indulges in leisurely swimming, he will, on an average, burn something between 430-575 calories. As has been mentioned above, much depends on the weight of the person and the kind of exercise that he is indulging in.

For instance, a person weighing 150 pounds will lose approximately 350 calories if he performs recreational backstroke for an hour. Similarly, a person weighing 200 pounds will burn 935 calories approximately if he indulges in freestyle laps while putting immense effort.

Swimming is a great way to lose body fat. Although spot reduction isn’t possible, once you burn excess calories and put your body in a calorie deficit state, your body will seek out fat that has already been stored throughout the body. As a result you will indirectly lose belly fat.

Swimming Exercises to Lose Belly Fat

Performing these exercises might take you closes to your goal of losing your belly fat. If you are swimming to lose belly fat, listed below are some of the exercises that might help you.

Simple Swimming

If you are a brand new swimmer, you can simply swim a few laps during your leisure. To smooth things out, swim a few laps in the pool and then take a break. Alternate this swimming and taking a break to ensure that you do not get exhausted easily.

Once you have mastered this art of swimming, that is, taking a break, and again plunging into the pool to swim some more laps without getting worn out, you will know that you have developed enough endurance. This will serve as a foundation and will prepare your body to move to more difficult swimming styles in the future.

Pedaling the Imaginary Bicycle

In this exercise, swimmers will have to keep their elbows on the side of the pool and then, move the legs in a motion as to pedaling an imaginary cycle. 

The benefits of cycling are not unknown to anyone. To name a few, cycling helps to improve your cardiovascular fitness, flexibility and strength of the muscles, mobility of joints, coordination, and posture, decreases the levels of stress, and also strengthens bones. Alongside all these, cycling also helps to reduce the fat levels in the body.

When you pedal the imaginary bicycle in water, your legs face a kind of resistance. Therefore, this exercise will help you strengthen your legs, and core by putting them to use. These, in turn, will help you burn the excess fat in your tummy. 

Jogging in the Pool

To perform this exercise, you will have to stand waist-deep in the water. If you are a beginner, start jogging with intervals of 1 minute. As you start getting a hang of the workout, gradually try for 3-minute ON 1-minute OFF intervals.

In this exercise too, the water will resist the movement of your legs. If you still want more resistance to add challenge to your workout, you may add some pool weights to increase the resistance.

Pool Lunges are Fun!

This is equivalent to the lunges one performs on dryland, it emphasizes leg muscles, the only difference being that the buoyant force of the water acts on your body as you move. To perform this exercise, stand in the pool with water reaching upto your waist. Move your right foot forward and lunge so that the thigh is parallel to the floor of the swimming pool. Simple, right?

Repeat the same with your other foot to complete the exercise. Do as many reps as your body permits. If you remain persistent in your efforts in performing these exercises, you are sure to burn a lot of calories in little or no time.

So what’s the final verdict?

Is Swimming Good for Losing Belly Fat?

Yes, swimming is one of the most effective low-impact cardio exercises that can help you shed your excess belly fat. Nevertheless, you should make it a point not to work on only one body part and try to lose fat from that specific area. If you are under the impression that certain exercises will help you target your abdominal fat and propel the loss of belly fat, you are wrong. However, some high-intensity training coupled with a calorie deficit diet might help.   

Not only this, but genetics also have a massive role to play when you try to lose fat, because it is your genetics that will decide which part of your body will burn fat.

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Final Words

Hope this gives you an idea about how swimming can be an effective instrument in helping you lose belly fat.

You may work on altering the duration, stroke style, and interval between your swimming workouts in order to see what works the best for your body. Now that you know that swimming doesn’t only cool you off on a hot day, reap the most benefits out of this fun yet effective exercise.

Therefore, if you are not a gym rat, or you are unable to take part in workouts due to joint pain or any other injury, swimming can save your day!