SWIMMING AND WEIGHT LOSS

By now you are aware that swimming is the best, most complete form of exercise there is, that it provides all the cardiovascular benefits of running while exercising all the muscles of the body, and that it offers protection against a host of deadly diseases. But you may not be convinced that swimming is also an excellent way to lose weight. The reason is that many of the experts are themselves confused and do not stress swimming as the excellent weight-reduction exercise it can be.

Take, for example, Covert Bailey, author of The New Fit or Fat. In a recent article in Men’s Health magazine, Bailey extols the benefits of swimming but writes that swimmers carry more body fat than runners or cyclists. He concludes, “If you’re overweight, I don’t recommend it as your only exercise.” He goes on to suggest that overweight people start with swimming before moving “on to exercises that burn more fat.”

The reason such experts are confused and their conclusions misleading has to do with the way calorie-burning capabilities of different sports are compared. Studies by University of California exercise physiologist Steven Gregg, Educational Testing Service statistician Howard Wainer, and others indicate that one mile of swimming is about equivalent to four miles of running. This 4-to-1 rule of thumb is supported by a comparison of the world records for men and women in the 400-meter freestyle and the one-mile (about 1,600 meters) run. The records are almost identical.

Think of it this way: if you work out for an hour, you might be able to run about eight miles or swim two. But the energy expended, and the calories burned, will be approximately the same.

I did say approximately, for it is true that because of the buoyancy of water and the swimmer’s horizontal position swimming burns slightly fewer calories than running. But the difference is very small, and the benefits of swimming—including the fact that it is virtually injury free and therefore more likely to be continued without interruption—far outweigh this tiny difference in leading to complete a successful weight-loss program.

Bailey is not the only exercise guru to sell swimming short. An article by runner Hal Higdon in American Health presents a chart comparing the benefits of thirteen forms of exercise. Again, swimming is acknowledged as “great” for building aerobic endurance and upper-body strength, improving flexibility, and reducing stress, but it is rated as only “fair” for weight control. The chart states that you will burn 320 calories per half hour at a speed of 50 yards per minute and 150 per half hour at 20 yards per minute.

The problem is the swimming speeds Higdon has chosen as hisexamples. These are extremely slow paces, resulting in thirty-five- and eighty-eight-minute miles. Using the 4-to-1 rule, they translate to running a mile in about nine minutes at the faster pace and twenty-two minutes at the slower. The first is the equivalent of a moderate jog. The second is slower than walking!

If you compare calories burned in equivalent running and swimming efforts, here is what you get:

 These results are for the crawl stroke, the most efficient of all swimming styles. If you swim at the same pace using one of the other strokes—backstroke, breaststroke, or butterfly—you will actually burn more calories.