Your swimming pool can provide many health benefits and can even be used for hydrotherapy. This article looks at how your own pool can be incredibly beneficial for both your mind and body.

The water cure.

Water and good health have always been connected. People have ‘taken the waters’ in spas all over Europe, they have eased their aches and pains in saunas and hot tubs and they have soaked in the shower or bath at the end of a long day.

Water is synonymous with good health and well-being and your swimming pool is no exception to that.

Here are a few ways that spending time in your pool will not only be fun but also contribute to a healthy mind in a healthy body.

1.   Low-impact aerobics.

Aerobic exercise does the body no end of good but ordinarily there is one significant drawback. Whether you are running, jogging or doing a dancercise class or boxing training, the activity that gets your heart pounding also tends to hammer your joints.

Swimming is the exception to that rule.

The water supports your body weight and takes the strain off your joints even as you get your pulse rate up and burn calories.

When you are swimming, the water is bearing your weight and the water resistance is protecting your joints from being over-extended. The pool is an ideal place to work stiff muscles and sore joints and that’s true even if you are overweight or suffer from arthritis – two conditions that make ordinary aerobic exercise particularly difficult.

2.   Burning calories.

Swimming increases muscle strength and muscle tone and it does that by burning calories.

If you are jogging, then you are just moving your body through the air. When you swim you have to propel yourself through the water, a medium much denser than air.

Every kick and every stroke becomes a resistance exercise. You are putting your entire body through a workout using not only your arms and legs but also your body core. Swimming is great at exercising abs and trimming your waistline.

Even if you are just messing about in the pool you will burn between 100 and 200 calories every half an hour. If you are swimming as hard as you can, then each 30 minutes in the pool will see you burn between 250 and 500 calories.

3.   A healthier heart.

Because swimming is an aerobic exercise, it serves to strengthen your heart. Your heart becomes larger, stronger and more efficient which leads to better blood flow throughout your body.

Regular aerobic exercise reduces blood pressure. In fact there are studies that suggest that 30 minutes of swimming per day reduce the threat of coronary heart disease by as much as 30%.

4.   Lower stress and higher spirits.

Swimming feels like a good way to relax and that’s because it actually is a good way to relax.

A few lengths of the pool and your body starts to produce endorphins; the feel-good chemicals which are responsible for the ‘natural high’ that runners and athletes experience.

A few more lengths and all the adrenalin, the fight-or-flight hormone, which a stressful day builds up in your system, is burnt off.

If you pool is a bit too small to swim lengths in, then a BADU Counter Current unit can give you a strong current of water to swim against and your pool becomes an ‘endless’ exercise pool.

Keep on swimming and the constant contraction, stretching and relaxing of your muscles combined with deep and regular breathing triggers a deep relaxation response in the same way that yoga works on your body to calm your mind.

Slimmer, trimmer, healthier and happier.

Your own pool is one of the best investments in your physical and mental health that you could possibly make.

If your pool is heated, covered or indoor, then you have all the benefits of hydrotherapy available to you, your family and your friends in your own home, 365 days a year.

Olympic swimmers have amazing bodies because swimming is such amazingly good exercise. You don’t have to dedicate your life to swimming in the same way that they do, but if you swim regularly then you are dedicating yourself to a better and healthier life.

We hope you found this article useful and interesting.

If you are looking for a pool supplier or pool builder, then just use the link at the top of this article to find someone with the appropriate skills and qualifications in your area.

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