Is swimming the best cardio for lowering body fat percentage? If so, how many meters per day should I swim?
I’m 6’2-6’3 215ish pounds and I’ve gained 30 pounds in muscle mass over the last 7-8 months, but I’m around 16% body fat and I want to be near 9% so my abs will be ripped. Is swimming the best way to lose this body fat over running?
If so, how many meters should I be swimming each day? I mainly only do front crawl and breast stroke. Any other suggestions help. Thank you.
To lose body fat % if your body building, you should do quick short sharp cardio work like intervals to lose the body fat.
Swimming I “think” (not 100% sure) burns more as compared to cycling and running if your going at a constant aerobic pace so if your going to do long and slower workouts, swimming would be the best.
If you are fairly good at swimming already, join a masters swim squad (you have to wake up early in the mornings like 5am to join in these) because you will swim much more distance as compared to yourself.
If you don’t haver that much experience in swimming and you can only swim 200m or less without stopping and gasping for breath, I’d say skip the swimming and do running intervals instead or rowing machine at the gym. Simply because swimming is all about technique and if you have poor technique, you will find it very hard to get a decent workout in at the beginning.
If you practice lots and get a coach then definitely swimming but if your just going to swim by yourself with no help, I’d recommend staying away from swimming and doing another form of cardio insted.
Work your way up to the following practice session…
Start by going half the reps and throw in 2 minutes rest between each ‘rep’. Reduce that eventually to resting only within the interval. To start, you can add up to 20 seconds per interval for rest.
Warm up: Swim 300M Easy
Pull cords (10 minutes 2min x 5)
Plank drills (1 minute plank – 30 sec rest repeat x 10) and/or V shape leg lifts (2 minutes leg lift – 1 min rest x 5)
4 x 200 M (4:00 interval)
2 Min rest
4 x 200 M (3:50 interval)
2 Min rest
4 x 100 M (1:55 interval)
1 min rest
4 x 100 M (1:50 Interval)
Cool down 200M choice
This will tone your chest and your abs — you need to remember to turn your hips during each stroke to engage your core muscles. This will effectively give you a core muscle workout working lats, lower and upper abs.
Swimming is a great way to lose body fat, but like any other exercise, it depends on how you do it. It won’t necessarily address what you want to have happen to your abs though. For that, you need to combine some isometrics and calisthenics. Like running, swimming is tailored to the type event you train for. I was a sprinter, so I did sprint workouts in college, and that consisted back in the day of about 3000 yards daily, while guys who swam the 1000 would do triple that. In addition, I worked with sit ups, crunches, pull ups and push ups to tighten my forearms, biceps, and upper body. The key to the sprint workout is the time in between each distance, and I always preferred a”pyramid”. Start with an easy 200 yd. warm up, and then go 50, 75, 100, 150, 200, 150, 100, 75, 50. Find the rest time in between each where you are comfortably exhausted. Play with it, and decrease the rest time, increase the distance, but finish with wind sprints of 25 yds. where you simply climb out of the pool, and turn around again and dive in, and do about 8-10 of those. Warm down with about a 200, and you will see that you are adequately “killed off”dependent on age and ability.
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I don’t know.. for someone like you (tall and big), swimming is supposed to be easier than running, and therefore running would get you more tired, and so you’ll burn more calories. Or, on the other hand, running would make you too tired too quickly, and you might not be able to run long enough to burn enough calories. Like for me, I’m 5’11 and 150, and swimming is a lot easier for me than running, and I feel like I’m burning less calories while swimming than while running, but I don’t know if this is actually the case. I usually swim for about 30 min and do about 1500 m. I swim 2 or 3 times a week, and I also run 2 or 3 times a week, and I also lift weights 2 or 3 times a week, and I haven’t really noticed any change in my bodyfat percentage, but that’s not my primary goal. But I did gain some muscle, and my endurance has improved.
Try the Lil Jack workout to get in shape http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKCGe2Ezris