Swimming has a lot of amazing benefits, but did you know you can swim every single day? We broke down the top 10 reasons you should consider adding a swim to your daily routine.
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1. Total Body Workout
Water is 800 times more resistant than air. This extra resistance requires all of the muscles in your body to work a little bit harder, and engages all of the different energy systems for a full-body workout.
Recruiting the whole body in your workout helps you burn more calories in each session, which can increase your metabolism.
Related: What Happens to Your Body When You Swim
2. Improves Your Flexibility
When you are in the water, you are stretching out your body with every stroke. Swimming gives you the opportunity to bend your body in ways it doesn’t normally move throughout the day. For example, if you do a flip turn in freestyle, you could do more than 100 flips throughout a 2,000 meter workout.
3. Great Cardio
As a primarily aerobic activity, swimming engages and strengthens the cardiovascular system. What separates swimming from running and other types of land-based cardio is that you can swim for longer periods of time — and even every day — since the water is very low impact.
4. Low Impact
When you swim, you aren’t putting a lot of pressure on your muscles, joints and ligaments as you would in other sports. Swimming has minimal impact on the body, but allows you to complete higher repetitions, or longer workouts.
However, incorporating dryland workouts is important to improve overall swimming performance. While you can’t go to the gym every day, adding 1 or 2 dryland workouts to your routine can help you get stronger in the water.
Since water is “zero gravity,” swimming is great exercise for anyone, including athletes who are working on injury prevention.
Related: Dryland Exercises for Swimmers
5. Improves Your Sleep
Swimming fatigues your entire body, causing you to be “equally tired” all over. Better sleep each night helps improve your productivity during the day. When you swim each day, your body adapts to the new routine and you’ll find that you will wake up refreshed each morning!
6. Builds Character
Establishing a swimming routine builds confidence and mental strength. Each day, you don’t have to decide if you want to go swim — the answer is always “yes!”
7. Makes You Feel Better
Sometimes you just don’t feel like getting in the water. Maybe you swim early in the morning and don’t want to get out of bed. But if you are disciplined and swim each day, you will find that you always feel better after you swim! Remembering how swimming makes you feel will help you stay motivated.
8. Life-Long Fitness
Swimming is one of the only fitness activities you can do every day of your life — from cradle to grave. Whether you are young or old, or if you have a disability, an injury, or if you are pregnant, you can still swim every day!
Related: Swimming is My Moving Medicine
9. Escape from the World
Swimming is like meditation. If you put your face in the water, there are no distractions from what you are doing at that moment. This “moving meditation” can reduce stress and anxiety and help you find your happy place!
Swimming is also a great way to take a break from your phone, making it almost impossible to check your email, social media or talk with friends.
10. Puts a Smile on your Face!
Swimming makes you happier! Numerous studies have shown that swimming — including racing and simply being in the water — causes the brain to release endorphins, which are also the cause of the “runner’s high” that many runners experience. Think about endorphins as a legal drug that makes you happy.
Related: 12 Swimmers Share Why They Love to Swim
How often do you swim? Let us know in the comments what you love most about swimming! If you’re looking for swim training tips and workouts, download the MySwimPro app on your iPhone or Android!
18 Comments
My 7 year old grandson is on a swim team since he was five and he trains 4 days a week, he has been in the water swimming since 6 months old. I’m hoping he continues to love this sport his whole life!
I am a 56-year-old woman, swimming seriously (taking lessons with former olympic swimmers) since 4,5 years. I go to the pool about 4-6 times a week. I love it! This month I set myself a challenge; to swim 50k in 20 one hour sessions of 2,5 km. Sometimes I swim more; yesterday I was able to swim 3k within the hour, (58 min total time, 56 without breaks between the sets). I am very tired today, and I was wondering if I could go swimming again this afternoon. Thanks to you I understand that I can do that. I’ll just do a recovery swim, with the focus on technique, like sculling, kicking (with board), breaststroke legs, all easy going ;-))
Take your clothes off in public
Jump into cold water
Do something very tiring
Try not to drown
At 78 what’s not to like doing it every day.
Great summary,at 68 I love my four days swims mental health kept at bay,!
Thanks for sharing Anna!
I feel energized after swimming. It’s a challenge and there’s always room to improve technique and endurance. My aged flesh sags less! I like to count my breaths and to be enveloped in blue with only the line on the bottom of the pool for a focus. I like that it’s simultaneously calming and invigorating.
Thanks for sharing, Althea!
I am 53, and I swim everyday, but I feel guilty if I take an occasional day off. For example, I swam for ten days in a row, two miles each day, and due to tired muscles and bad weather, decided to sleep in today. But I struggle mentally on the days I do not swim, even though my hope is that it makes me fresher and more excited for the next swim. So it does become a double edge sword at times. I love swimming so much, and still I am also a slave to it, both at the same time. Either way, as it is something I have done since I was ten, swimming will always make me feel young. I have made priceless friendships in those lap lanes, and the water is, indeed, a sanctuary.
The water is totally a sanctuary! Don’t beat yourself up for taking a few days off. Think of those rest days as time for your body to recover and come back to the pool stronger!
I used to swim competitively in my teen years and have always loved the water. These days, my swimming is limited to pretty much holidays! Now aged 53 with several spinal operations behind me, further major surgery to come in the next year (multiple level fusion with rod and plate fixation), the menopause and stress/anxiety issues and family health challenges, I have taken up swimming again. The idea was originally was solely to strengthen my spine as much as possible to aid my recovery time after the surgery, but after just my first 2 swims, the difference in my ‘head space’ was immediately noticeable. Due to my work – and being the main carer for my elderly parents who live with us, I am having to swim at 06:30 in the mornings. As an insomniac-ridden night owl, the early start on day 1 was a struggle and I was extremely proud of myself for not just turning the alarm clock and going back to sleep!! However, I felt so much improved after that first swim that I actually looked forward to getting up the next day. I am hoping that getting up so early will render me sleepy at around 11pm as opposed to 2am, and therefore enable me to develop a more sensible sleep pattern. For the first time in a long, long period I have faced the day ahead with a sense of calm and a lot more patience with looking after my parents, alongside working at home for my ‘paid’ job all day. My GP is a great advocate for exercise to aid the mind and keep mental health in check, but I am so limited with mobility that it’s hard to find something I CAN do. Now the pools are open once again, I decided this would be my best option and heck, am I glad I did! I hope I can keep the motivation up and will be really interested to see if my emotional state continues to improve…..any improvement in physical health is now simply a bonus!
That is amazing to hear! Happy swimming 🙂
I live in London and started swimming at the open water ponds on Hampstead Heath in April. I wanted to try natural swimming and cold water swimming. I bought a 6 month pass and I’ve already been 40 times. I love swimming with the ducks.
I have struggled with my weight for the last few years and I’m really swimming to try and improve my shape which it definitely is.
I bought a fitness tracker a few days ago and I swam 3/4 km on Monday and 1km yesterday. Today I feel a bit stiff which is why I searched for your article. I’m glad to know that I might just have to balance easy swimming with more intense swimming and make sure I warm up!!
It’s definitely meditative and it’s one of the only activities making me look forward to the end of summer to get cold water again although I’m not sure how cold I can go.
Thanks for the information:))
So glad you’re enjoying swimming, Julie! Definitely ease into your swimming routine so your body can adapt. Happy swimming!
I am a senior who loves to swim 30 lengths daily. I have been doing so for more than 25 years. It made a more effective school teacher mentally and physically. Your Youtube “workshop” on the benefits of daily swimming is spot on. I plan to print out the text and keep it on my fridge.
That’s great to hear, Anne! Keep up the great work, and happy swimming!
Thanks for this great article. I came across it as I too was just wondering why I’d become so addicted to swimming?! I swam competitively as a kid, but only come back to it in the last 5 years (I’m now 45) and absolutely kicking myself for being out of the pool for so long.
It’s amazing how many friends of mine swam as youths, but haven’t been to the pool in years, despite saying how much they love swimming. I enjoy taking them along “just for one swim” and see how they too become addicted to it, perhaps it’s just a confidence thing?
The beauty of this sport is that you are constantly improving. Whether it’s lap time, a new stroke or just refining technique. Every single 25m is where you can switch off and just focus on that pull or kick and how it feels.
I’m now relearning the medley… too old? No way. Swimming simply sees the age as a number. It’s such a joy to know I can carry on swimming into older age.
What I love about swimming? The mates you meet in the lanes (even tho you don’t recognise them in the foyer after with their clothes on!), the feeling of completing your set and getting changed, the dolphin kicks from the start where you feel the water around your body. The list goes on, but that’s why I’m addicted and doing my best to make more people addicted to it too.
I’ve been swimming every day for the last 20 years. I do a half hour non stop, usually 25-30 laps. I also run and bike but the swim is my favorite. When I don’t swim for some reason, usually the gym closed, I double up and do an extra 25 laps the next day. I hate missing my water time. Mentally, physically the best part of my day, I’m not in it for time or technique but with time I feel I just become part of the water it’s so cool to almost not have to breathe that much when I catch my groove, I could swim forever!!
I am 65 and started swimming lessons 2 months ago. I never thought that I would be this comfortable in the water. Lessons are on Saturday and I realized that I needed to practice during the week. I started going to the pool on Mondays and Wednesdays. Right now for about 45 minutes – practicing freestyle and backstroke.
After lessons are over, I plan on still going to the pool 4 or 5 days a week.