Use HIIT In Swimming To Burn More Calories

Use HIIT In Swimming To Burn More Calories : It’s no surprise that HIIT has become extremely popular in recent years. HIIT stands for High-intensity interval training. The idea behind HIIT is to train in intervals, having moments of intense physical activity that gets your heart racing.

This is then followed up by a lower intensity (Usually 30% or so less intense) exercise to recover. This is continued until you reach a period of exhaustion and you can’t continue.

A typical example of this would be sprinting for 30 seconds and then following up with a 1-minute walk.

Unless you have been living under a rock, it’s been a very popular form of training.

Now when you throw swimming into the mix, you get a low-impact high-reward (In terms of burning calories) form of exercise. Because swimming is less prone to injury and requires less recovery time than say, running it means that you can get to your fat-burning activities more quickly.

And this is precisely why mixing HIIT and swimming is a great form of cardiovascular activity that will ultimately help us shred calories and get the body that we’re striving for. Swimming utilizes your chest, back, glutes shoulders, and core which means you’re going to be getting a full-body workout.

If you, like me haven’t been getting around to much exercise lately due to their times we’re living in now then this may be a great way to get your heart and body kickstarted again.

How do we get started with HIIT and swimming?

The first thing that you’ll need to be equipped with is a timer. You could use a smartwatch for swimming or you could use a normal stopwatch or use those clocks that you often see at the swimming pool (You know, those massive Speedo ones).

You may also need goggles, depending on your personal requirements however a way to count our intervals is the most important for the purpose of this exercise. Now, is swimming the only way possible to do cardio underwater? Definitely not. There are also practices such as cycling and boxing. You can even create HIIT routines underwater by combining all these practices. In the end, you’ll end up with a dynamic method while having lots of fun. For more information, you can visit Waterresist website.

HIIT Swimming Exercises Explained

Ok, the first thing that we’ll need to do is warm-up before beginning an interval training exercise. In order to do that, do 200-250m of freestyle at your own pace until you feel warmed up. Some people may require less time than others, please use the above for a benchmark only. You could be warmed up after 100m of freestyle swimming.

But once you’re warmed up then we’re ready to begin. Please note that the below exercise assumes you’re a beginner to both swimming and HIIT. However, even if you’re experienced you can make use of this exercise if you exert the right levels of energy. Ultimately, anyone can make use of it, from beginners to seasonal swimmers alike.

For example, the exercise makes note of walking between transitions which can be utilized for new swimmers, if you’ve been doing this kind of thing for a while then you can go breaststroke all the way. It’s meant to work for you!

HIIT Exercise – Freestyle & Walking/Breaststroke: 50m Sprints

In this exercise, we’ll combine 50m freestyle sprints at 100% intensity together with a walk across to the other side of the pool which should keep us at around 50% intensity. If you’re swimming in a 50m pool, do the changeover every time you reach the other side, and if you’re in a 25m pool then repeat it twice before transitioning over.

If you’re in a deep pool and can’t walk to the other side of the pool then you can replace this with breaststroke and change it to walking as you can place your feet on the floor.

You may notice that some steps have been doubled up below, this isn’t a mistake. We want to get as much intensity out of the window at the beginning as possible and then we’ll transition into easier intervals to keep the heart rate up high from the get-go.

Training set:

50m freestyle at 100% intensity
50m walk/breaststroke at 50% intensity
50m freestyle at 100% intensity
50m freestyle at 100% intensity
50m walk/breaststroke at 50% intensity
50m walk/breaststroke at 50% intensity
50m freestyle at 100% intensity
50m walk/breaststroke at 50% intensity
50m freestyle at 100% intensity
50m walk/breaststroke at 50% intensity

Cooling down:

Have a 1-minute rest, followed up by a 100m or 200m freestyle swim at a slow-pace. The idea here is to get your heart rate back down slowly and ease out of the exercise.

Total meters: 500m in HIIT, 300-500m in warming up.

If you’re feeling up to the task, you can repeat this or you can turn it into a training routine that you do at least 3 days a week.

Followed up with an effective diet, using HIIT and swimming is a great way to get into shape again as well as improving your cardio.

Conclusion

Not only is HIIT a great form of cardiovascular exercise that will strengthen our hearts and increase our endurance, but it is also a great way to shred off any of those unwanted extra calories that we’re been carrying along. Followed up with an effective diet, using HIIT and swimming is a great (and fun!) way to get into shape again.

Not only this, but swimming has been known to increase your mitochondria levels. Studies have shown that swimming modifies the mitochondria structure and it is a well-known fact that mitochondria increase our energy production which in turn results in a better physical output from us.

I hope you enjoyed reading the article and wish you the best in your fitness journey!

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