CROSSWIM® health benefits
a combination of both gives a tremendous number of health benefits.
CROSSWIM® has it all!
SWIMMING
Swimming is now recognized as one of the biggest calorie burners around, and it’s great for keeping weight under control. The exact number of calories you burn, of course, depends on your own physiology and the intensity with which you exercise, but as a general rule, for every 10 minutes of swimming: the breast stroke will burn 60 calories; the backstroke torches 80; the freestyle lights up 100; and the butterfly stroke incinerates an impressive 150.
Unlike exercise machines in a gym, swimming puts the body through a broad range of motion that helps joints and ligaments stay loose and flexible. Plus, with every stroke, as you reach forward, you’re lengthening the body, which gives you a good stretch from head to toe. To improve your flexibility beyond the natural gains you’ll make by swimming, you might also want to finish your pool workout with a series of gentle stretches. The support of the water helps you maintain positions involving tricky balance for longer periods of time.
Swimming offers something no other aerobic exercise does: the ability to work your body without harsh impact to your skeletal system. About 90% of your body’s weight is buoyant when you swim, so you’re only bearing 10% of your weight. This allows for greater ease of movement with less strain placed on bones, joints and muscles.
In addition to toning visible muscles, swimming also helps improve the most important muscle in our bodies: the heart. Because swimming is an aerobic exercise, it serves to strengthen the heart, not only helping it to become larger, but making it more efficient in pumping – which leads to better blood flow throughout your body. Also swimming can combat the body’s inflammatory response as well – a key link in the chain that can lead to heart disease (Columbia University Medical Center), reduces blood pressure (J. Bobalik, 2007)
As you swim, the water that surrounds your body exerts pressure which helps your circulatory system return your blood to your heart. The demand on your heart is reduced by up to 17 beats per minute or 13% compared to someone exercising on land.
Being healthy is more about having the right ratio of cholesterol. Specifically, it’s beneficial to have higher levels of “good” cholesterol (HDL) and lower levels of LDL, or “bad” cholesterol. Swimming can get these levels in the right balance and for every 1 percent increase in “good” cholesterol, the risk of dying from heart disease drops by 3.5 percent (J. Bobalik, 2007). What’s more, studies have shown that because aerobic exercise causes arteries to expand and contract, swimming keeps them fit and flexible as you age.
With just 30 minutes of breaststroke swimming three times per week, you could burn 900 calories – reducing your risk of contracting type 2 diabetes by over 10 percent. A study that focused on women also suggested the same benefits for the fairer sex: Vigorous exercise just once a week (like the kind derived from a robust swimming session) lowered their risk of contracting type 2 diabetes by 16 percent over inactive women (J. Bobalik, 2007). And, if you already have type 1 diabetes, the aerobic benefits of swimming can be particularly helpful, as this type of exercise can increase insulin sensitivity (University of Maryland).
Unlike exercising in the often dry air of the gym, or contending with seasonal allergies or frigid winter air, swimming provides the chance to work out in moist air, which can help reduce exercise-induced asthma symptoms. Not only can pool workouts help you avoid asthma attacks, some studies have shown that swimming can actually improve the condition overall. They saw improvements in symptoms such as snoring, severity, mouth-breathing. Also swimming increases lung volume and teach proper breathing techniques.
Water disperses heat more efficiently, so there is less chance of overheating. The water continuously cools the body. Exercise in the water is cooler and more comfortable than it is on land.
One of swimming’s most pleasant side effects is release of feel-good chemicals known as endorphins. In addition to a natural high, swimming can also evoke the relaxation response the same way yoga works on the body. This is due in large part to the constant stretching and relaxing of your muscles combined with deep rhythmic breathing. Aside from the metaphysical benefits of swimming, research has shown that it can actually change the brain for the better through a process known as hippocampal neurogenesis, in which the brain replaces cells lost through stress (J. Borchard, 2010)
Swimming can keep you from dying prematurely. Researchers at the University of South Carolina discovered that those who swam had a 50 percent lower death rate than runners, walkers or who got no exercise.
If you know how to swim, you might have a chance of saving someone close to you. Having the ability to swim is especially important if you are a parent or someone who works around children, as drowning is the second-leading cause of injury-related death for children less than 14 years old.
At one time or another, you are bound to find yourself in or near water, whether you’re on a cruise, boating trip, fishing or lounging by a pool with friends. An obvious reason for learning how to swim is to acquire the ability to survive in water, knowing how to swim could save your life.
STRENGTH & CONDITIONING
Weight training might also help you get better at your favorite non-gym sport activities. Any person involved in sport benefits tremendously from strength training. A large body of research backs this up. Moreover, weightlifting also improves dexterity, endurance and hand-eye coordination, all of which will help you be at the top of your game.
As you age, you naturally lose muscle and bone mass. This is of special concern for women, whose bones are smaller to begin with and can become dangerously weakened by age (women make up 80% of osteoporosis cases). When you forcefully contract your muscles, they end up pulling on and gently stressing your bones. Just as your muscles adapt to the stress of weightlifting by becoming bigger and stronger, your bones also adapt. “Anytime your bones perceive stress, the response is that more bone will be deposited”( Vivian Ledesma, D.C.)
Heavy weights develop more than just muscle. Lifting heavy increases the production of many hormones, including the hormone IGF-1, which helps to stimulate connections in the brain and enhance cognitive function. Experts say that exercise can start a cascade of positive brain activity that may improve function in the short-term and – particularly if an exercise routine is maintained – the long run. Simply said: strength training can improve your ability to learn and think as you age.
Research from the journal Oncogene published in 2017 showed that visceral fat cells produce high levels of a cancer-triggering protein called fibroblast growth factor-2, or FGF2. Strengthening your muscles has a significant effect on your body’s fat cells. In a large December 2014 Obesity study, Harvard researchers found that, minute per minute, strength training does more to regulate age-related abdominal fat than does cardio. Strength training may also support healthy body fat levels by affecting hormone levels and reducing inflammation (American Council on Exercise)
In study published in the February 2008 issue of Cell Metabolism, Boston University researchers demonstrated that type II muscle fibres, the kind you build when you lift weights, improve whole-body metabolism. What’s more, over the long term, building lean muscle mass increases your resting metabolic rate. In addition, weightlifting exercises also trigger a temporary metabolic boost, called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, or EPOC, you body need to cool down and repair itself after weight training.
It is no doubts, that strength training help to regulate insulin and prevent development of type II diabetes. Here are some numbers: People with moderate levels of muscle strength have a 32 percent lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those with low levels of muscle strength (Mayo Clinic Proceedings, April 2019). A study published in The Archives of Internal Medicine found that men who lifted weights for 150 minutes each week had a 34 percent lower risk of diabetes. But adding regular cardiovascular exercise (like swimming) slashed the risk by 59 percent. Other study reports that weight training encourages the growth of white muscle, which aids in lowering blood glucose because it uses glucose for energy.
It is very simple. Improving your muscles strength, you protect your joints from injury. Staying away from injuries lets you enjoy life in full. Moreover, you will be able to perform your daily tasks much easier too. Also, by stressing your muscles, you stimulate them to grow and become stronger. It doesn’t take long. According to study in the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity in Aug 2020, older adults significantly improved their total-body muscle strength after just 16 hour-long resistance workouts.
Aside from your major muscle groups, your body has various smaller muscles called stabilizer muscles. These muscles help stabilize you. Each time you exercise you’re indirectly targeting those little muscles that help keep you upright and take care of your everyday tasks or stopping yourself from falling. With improved balance, you are better equipped to maintain equilibrium. Muscle mass really deteriorates in old age and strength is a clinical marker for functional dependence.
Taking in consideration, that swimming is a cardiovascular exercise, there is an evidence for the efficacy of both cardiovascular exercise and resistance exercise, either independently or combined (*Crosswim), in the treatment of depression across the range of severity levels and age groups (Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 2013 Jul). Numerous studies have revealed a relationship between regular exercise and improvements in mental health, including increased cognition, mood, and general quality of life (Penedo and Dahn, 2005; Puetz et al., 2006). Moreover, it’s been shown that resistance training reduces the frequency and severity of depressive symptoms and also helps in the management of anxiety (JAMA Psychiatry, May 2018). Also strength training increases levels of feel-good chemicals (like endorphins and endocannabinoids) in the brain. It also affects levels of drain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF), which supports brain health.
Resistance training using body weight and free weights, strengthens more than just your muscles. It also strengthens your bones and connective tissues. This added strength and stability will help you ward off injuries reducing symptoms of many conditions like back pain, arthritis and chronic pain.
Inactive adults can lose 3 to 8 percent of muscle mass per decade. Heavy resistance training can help fight, and reverse, the loss of muscle mass. Strength training twice per week reduces the risk of all-cause mortality. Researchers followed older adults for 15 years, and determined that those who strength trained at least twice per week were 46 percent less likely to die during that time. (Preventative Medicine, June 2016)
Emerging clinical evidence suggests that muscle-strengthening exercise (e.g. push‐ups, using weight machines) may also be beneficial for sleep quality (Preventive Medicine Reports Vol20, Dec 2020). It is suggested that strength training tends to create a bigger surge of adenosine, a molecule that, when broken down becomes adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, which is responsible for intercellular energy exchange. When ATP is naturally depleted through activity, it breaks back down into adenosine and at that point, tends to cause drowsiness.
Being stuck in one position all day — like sitting at your computer — weakens the stabilizer muscles in your torso, which play a major role in your posture.
Regular strength training can help increase the endurance of the muscles in your trunk that are responsible for proud posture.
Though cardiovascular exercises like swimming has long gotten all of the heart-health glory, more and more research shows that resistance training deserves some, too. The study looked at what happens to arteries and blood flow after 45 minutes of moderate-intensity strength training and found that there was up to a 20 percent decrease in blood pressure — a benefit equal to or surpassing that of taking anti-hypertensive drugs (Leisure and Exercise Science at Appalachian State University)
When you have back pain for a prolonged period of time, your back muscles may have less mass, greater fatty content, and more stiffness, which can cause them to fatigue more easily and result in worsening pain (Exercise in the management of chronic back pain. Ochsner J. 2014). If you work in an office, you know that sitting at your desk all day can wreak havoc on your lower back, leading to stiffness and pain. Weightlifting may help strengthen the muscles of your core – those that support your spine – to lessen the discomfort and undo some of the damage caused by sitting all day. Strong muscles in your back also help keep your spine moving as it should.
By taking your joints through their full range of motion during strength exercises, you can increase that range of motion over time. Results from a 2017 study in the journal Isokinetics and Exercise Science show that strength training improves flexibility in both men and women.