Do I Need to Lift Weights If I Swim?

Swimming is a fantastic, calorie-burning, full-body workout. It's an enjoyable and soothing activity that has therapeutic benefits as well. However, you must lift weights if your objective is to gain strength and muscle. Preparing for the pool by working on your strengths is the best course of action.

Strength

While swimming can help you gain muscle, a dedicated weightlifting routine will do it better. This is due to the resistance of water, which makes it possible to gain strength without significantly harming joints and muscles. However, integrating a lift workout can be quite helpful if you are a competitive swimmer or a lap swimmer who is wanting to develop their strength (and possibly speed). To achieve the best results, competitive swimmers should adhere to a properly crafted lifting regimen that is separate from their pool sessions. We advise against swimming immediately after a strength or lifting activity, despite the temptation. Instead, wait until another day or time. You can avoid overstraining your muscles and body by concentrating on swimming instead.

Speed

Compared to gym or land-based training, swimming puts less strain on the muscles and joints while still increasing strength and endurance. This is what makes it such a great (and effective) approach to increasing performance, transforming one's appearance, and growing muscle. The muscles that are used, however, must be adequately developed and powerful to keep up with the aerobic demands of the activity for swimming to be successful. This is why it's a good idea for swimmers to add upper-body strength workouts to their regimen. These exercises help to enhance muscular mass, flexibility, and range of motion, lower the chance of injury, and boost swimming power and speed. Swimmers should lift weights or do strength training the day before their swim workout. So that they can finish their swim workout mostly on fat stores rather than carbs, this will make sure that their glycogen stores are drained. They won't experience excessive weariness or soreness after their swim workout thanks to it.

Endurance

For swimmers, endurance training is crucial since it increases speed and overall stroke efficiency. Through the burning of calories, it also contributes to accelerating body fat loss. Swimming combined with the use of resistance bands or dumbbells can be a terrific way to increase endurance. The deadlift, squat, and bench press are examples of large, compound, multi-joint workouts that can help increase strength, power, and athletic performance. Swimming is wonderful for toning and growing muscle, but it doesn't burn as many calories as weightlifting or other vigorous exercises. Swimming also doesn't put as much strain on bones and joints as other forms of exercise. Ultimately, one's unique goals will determine whether to swim before or after a weight or strength training session. It's crucial to keep in mind that it's advised to cool down by treading water for 5–10 minutes after lifting weights. This will enable muscles to unwind and core heat to gradually decrease.

Weight Loss

Both swimming and lifting weights burn calories, but cutting calories is the key to losing fat. Diet and exercise are the most effective ways to do this. You can develop strength and power that will carry over well into the water by including weight training in your exercise regimen. You can target the main muscular groups used in lap swimming with bench pressing, squats (particularly squat jumps), lat pulls, and even simple body-weight exercises like pushups to increase your overall speed and stroke technique. However, it's crucial to make sure you're adequately resting in between swim exercises and gym sessions. This includes getting enough sleep each night, eating enough protein, staying hydrated with plenty of water, and warming up appropriately before exercising to lower your chance of injury.