How swimming can help runners

It need not only be triathletes and swimmers who engage in swimming on a regular basis. Doing swimming on a recreational level, regularly can definitely help a runner in several ways, too.

Here are some of the benefits of swimming.

Runners who take up swimming can benefit in several ways.
Photo by: en.wikipedia.org

1) Improves your endurance

Use those swimming workouts like tempo or running intervals. Do them at moderate intensity and you will quickly notice your endurance levels would have improved. Each swimming workout need not be long, too – about half an hour is sufficient.

2) Rests your running muscles

By running regularly day in and day out, your joints and muscles will suffer a beating. But by taking days off running to go swimming, it will help you to rest those running muscles. At the same time, the muscles that you would never usually exercise much, especially the upper body ones would be worked on. And ultimately this will make you a fitter and more well-rounded person overall.

At the same time, if you need to lay off running because of an injury, then jumping into the pool to swim will help you to maintain fitness while your injury is recovering.

3) Shakes up your routine

It can be boring to keep on running and no matter how passionate you are about it, there will sometimes be days when you are feeling low on motivation and do not feel like logging those miles.

So that is where swimming can come in handy – instead of running (yet again). You could jump into the pool and do a quality swim, rather than a half-hearted run. It will also make your training routine so much more interesting, at the same time.

4) Improves your capacity to breathe in oxygen

Swimming helps to develop the capacity of your lungs to take in oxygen. This is because of the repeated breathing in and holding your breath that is required of swimmers. And as a result, it will make you into a more efficient runner – who is able to breathe much more steadily and rhythmically when you are out there pounding the pavements or the trails.