Which swimming style is the most effective in losing weight?

Apart from being good for heart health, swimming is also effective in losing weight with a low risk of injury. However, of the four swimming styles, there is one of the most effective swimming styles that can reduce your weight. Which one do you think? Read on to find out.

Can swimming really lose weight?

Swimming movements involve a lot of muscle movement. The heart and lungs work even harder when doing sports in water. It's no surprise that swimming can burn a lot of calories. You can lose weight too. All body styles are effective for weight loss.

Swimming calorie burn depends on the style done, distance, and also speed. That means the further you swim, of course, it can increase your calorie burn even more.

It is the same with speed. The faster you can swim with the right technique, the more calories you burn. If you consider the distance and speed to be the same, here is the ratio of calorie burn based on each stroke.

Frog style (breaststroke)

Breaststroke

If you go to a public swimming pool, you will probably see the most people swimming in this style that is often called the frog. When performing this force, the muscles of the upper and lower body are equally active.

When you do this forceful hand pull to the front of your chest with a full force, you are moving the muscles pectoralis, namely the muscles located in your chest. This includes the muscles in your arms including the biceps.

After you have pulled your hands in front of your chest, you should push your hands back forward in a straight position. This push you provide will require engaging your shoulders, chest and triceps muscles.

Alternately with the hands, the breaststroke legs are moved. The lower muscles, namely the legs, glutes, thighs, will be involved in the breaststroke movement.

The breaststroke or frogstroke is a style that burns fewer calories than other swimming strokes. Performing repeated breaststroke steps for up to 10 minutes burns up to 60 calories.

Back style

The backstroke is the only force with a supine position facing the sky, while the other 3 swimming strokes face down in the water.

The backstroke trains the core muscles to hold the body balanced and straight on the surface of the water. The movement of the hand rotating backwards in this style also makes the biceps move predominantly.

Your hands must rotate continuously alternately to push the water as hard as possible, while moving the legs. The backstroke involves many of the lower muscles, from the glutes to the thigh muscles to the hamstring muscles (3 types of muscles that run along the back of the thigh, below the pelvis down to the bottom of the knee). This backstroke can burn 80 calories in 10 minutes.

Freestyle

Freestyle hands and feet work much like the backstroke. The hands are rotated alternately right and left while moving the legs along the swimming freestyle. The difference is, the backstroke is supine, while the freestyle is prone.

Freestyle requires rotation of the shoulders so that the hand is able to swing forward as far as possible and then it can again draw the water as hard as it can.

Upper back muscles, shoulders, latisimus dorcii, pectoralis, deltoid play a role in the rotation of the freestyle hand rotation.

Apart from that the core muscles are also needed. All swimming strokes will definitely engage these core muscles. The core muscles are responsible for positioning streamlined and the body is balanced in the water. Streamline is the position of the body, hands, and legs straight parallel to the surface of the water.

In the legs, hips, butt muscles, and thigh muscles are actively moving, making your swimming speed accelerate. Calories that can be burned through this freestyle are about 100 calories every 10 minutes.

Butterfly style

If you have studied the butterfly from an adult, believe me you will find this style to be the toughest to do. The butterfly style involves all the core muscles of the body to move against the water.

The lastisimus dorcii muscle is a large, flat muscle located in the middle of the back, on the right and left sides. Pectoralis muscles, quadriceps, hamstrings. and, shoulder and hip muscles. All of these muscles will be used together in one butterfly motion.

The large number of large muscles that are active in the butterfly motion makes this force work harder on the heart and lungs to distribute oxygen. You will also get the most calories burned from this movement.

In fact, the number of muscles actively involved in both freestyle and butterfly style is the same. The difference is most noticeable in hand movements. If you do the butterfly stroke, you will use all the muscles together with both your right and left hand. In freestyle, the muscles are used alternately between the right and left hands.

Therefore, even though the muscles involved are the same, from the difference in movement it can be seen if the butterfly requires more force than freestyle.

That's why, the butterfly stroke is the most powerful swimming style to lose weight. Just 10 minutes of swimming butterfly style can burn up to 150 calories your body. Isn't it so big in just a moment? If you eat 1 serving (100g) of french fries, you can burn half the calories in 10 minutes, which is 312 calories. Not surprisingly, by doing this style regularly, you can achieve the weight you dream of.