As the outside temperatures warm up, it’s much more appealing to go for a swim! Swimming is super beneficial for our bodies and it’s an activity you can keep up across your lifetime.

Perfect for all ages swimming is a low-impact workout that can help you relax and feel good. The most common swimming styles are breaststroke, backstroke, sidestroke and freestyle.

Health benefits of swimming:

Swimming is a fantastic workout because you are required to move your whole body against the resistance of the water.

Swimming is great for your health because it:

• Keeps your heart rate up but takes some of the impact stress off your body
• Helps you maintain a healthy weight, healthy heart and healthy lungs
• Builds endurance, muscle strength and cardiovascular fitness
• Provides an all-over body workout
• Tones muscles and builds strength

Other benefits:

Swimming has lots of other benefits:

• As a relaxing and peaceful form of exercise, it effectively reduces stress
• Improves flexibility
• Improves coordination, balance and posture
• Can help you cool down on a hot day
• Can be a fun activity for all the family to enjoy together
• And you can swim in lots of different places: pools, beaches, lakes and rivers.

Getting started:

Starting to swim is easy. There are public pools all over Australia that are open to anyone. Entry is usually inexpensive and most aquatic centres will offer swimming lessons for people of all ages and abilities.

Make sure you:

• Know how to swim
• Choose a safe environment
• Warm up and stretch before getting in the water
• Drink plenty of water
• Don’t overdo it when starting out