Swimming Workouts for Weight Loss for Beginners

Kickboards are a great option to isolate the leg muscles and specifically build up strength in the legs. The great thing about incorporating the kickboard is that your face and head are out of the water so breathing is easy. Mixing in some kicking can act as a bit of a breather letting you catch your breath while still working the leg muscles.

Flippers or fins will give you greater propulsion with your kick allowing you to move more quickly from one end of the pool to the other. As a beginner, this can be a real advantage as you build up your stamina and strength. Though the recommendation would be to mix your workout up by adding flippers of a portion rather than for the whole thing.

The third item is the pull buoy. The pull buoy is a bit more advanced as it eliminates the use the legs forcing the swimmer to only use the upper body. Give yourself a little time to build your upper body strength before introducing the pull buoy. Swimming becomes much more challenging without the use of the legs!

Beginner Swim Workout #1 – Interval Style

Maybe you just do number 1 for your first workout. That is awesome! The great thing about intervals like this is that as you get stronger, you can increase the reps (number of times) and even decrease the rest (maybe just resting for 10 seconds.) Perhaps the second time in the water you want to add some use of the kickboard so you do numbers 1 and 3. As you get stronger, maybe it becomes numbers 1, 3, and 1 again. You can mix up the strokes that you do for the different sets as well. You will be surprised how quickly you build up strength!

Water jogging is great exercise as well and keeps your body moving up as you return to the other end of the pool. *If the pool has a deep end and you cannot jog back, hop out and walk. This will allow your heart rate to come down a little but without a full stop of activity. It’s a great way to build up your endurance and as you get stronger, add more reps!

A lot of swimmers will do a few laps easy swim as a cool down. If you have a few laps left in you to do this, great. However, you might find the workout itself leaves you exhausted, and a few laps cool down sounds like more energy than you have left in you. Just like the warm up, maybe a 5 minute walk is a better option. The goal of the cool down is to slowly lower your heart rate. Take another few minutes for stretching to help reduce tightness in the muscles. Drink lots of water to hydrate as people often don’t realize how much you sweat while swimming!

Remember, there is no right or wrong if you keep your workout within your limits. Mix it up and keep it fun as that’s the best way to maintain the motivation to keep at it!