Improve Your Yoga Routine by Swimming
Yoga is an amazing mind and body exercise that can help an individual feel focused, flexible, strong, and clear-minded. It is particularly good for those who have high cortisol levels because it can lower stress and inflammation. But your yoga routine shouldn’t be your only form of exercise…
Swimming and yoga…
While at home yoga is amazing for you, one should not focus solely on yoga but should add in one or two other types of exercise to work the entire body in different ways, which can add even more health benefits.
One of the best exercises to add along with a yoga routine is swimming.
Swimming Improves Flexibility
Eventually, an inflexible body will appear tight and hunched, and the elderly may have difficulty bending and moving naturally without pain.
Yoga can help with these movements, but the body must be flexible in order to perform most yoga poses correctly. Swimming is particularly good at improving flexibility in the arm and shoulder joints as well as in the back as the swimmer uses a variety of strokes to propel through the water.
Yoga is particularly effective if it is practiced immediately after a swimming session because muscles will already be warm and ready to stretch, creating more beautiful and more controlled asanas. Swimming also helps the practitioner learn how to control their breath.
When swimming, the breath has to be controlled so that one doesn’t drown. These breathing techniques are easily transferred to the practice of yoga, creating stronger lungs and more controlled breathing patterns.
Swimming Improves Strength
One may think of a weight room as being necessary for building strength. However, one can build strength by performing bodyweight exercises and even by walking or jogging.
Swimming is one of the best exercises for building strength though because it uses nearly every muscle in the body. In swimming, the muscles are put through even more training than they would be when working out on land because water is more difficult to propel oneself through than the air is.
Core muscles are significantly strengthened during swimming because they are needed to hold the body flat and to help propel the legs through the water.
Arm, leg, and core strength are required in yoga to hold poses, balance, and to hold one’s entire body weight on the arms or hands as is required in more advanced poses.
Swimming Lessons Improve Skill
People don’t think about it, but swimming uses a lot of muscles and fine motor movements. Therefore, these skills learned in swimming can be easily applied to a myriad of activities, especially yoga.
Children, teenagers, and even adults who take swimming lessons will find that their overall skills improve in all exercise routines, including yoga, as they learn to use their bodies in new ways.
For instance, adult swimming lessons in NYC can help people build up exercise endurance, build strength throughout the body, and improve upon inflammation in the muscles and joints, which can decrease pain and discomfort in older adults.
This is why you see so many older folks enjoying their time in the pool at rec centers and other places. Swimming lessons will teach individuals correct swimming forms to prevent them from injuring their bodies during any type of exercise.
Swimming is Aerobic Fitness
Not only does swimming improve strength, but also it improves heart and lung function. Thus, it is an amazing cardio exercise. It increases heart rate during the exercise but helps to lower it after exercise.
Therefore, it is a good adjunct to yoga, which is more of a strength training and brain fitness exercise. The lungs receive great benefits during swimming, increasing lung capacity and aerobic capacity is also increased.
To be good at yoga, one must be able to quiet the mind and focus on the movement. In yoga, the individual must be very aware of where each body part is and how to move each part gracefully.
Swimming helps to develop this by improving concentration and by increasing consciousness over body movements. Because you have to concentrate on your breath and movements when swimming, it helps increase focus and determination.
It truly does take a lot of brainpower to use a regular swimming routine to increase your ability to have a satisfying yoga experience.
Wrap-Up
Swimming is truly an amazing full-body exercise that comes with numerous health benefits.
Each of these benefits can be used to improve your yoga routine and any other exercise that one wishes to pursue.
The more strength and flexibility that one has, the faster the body will recover from injury and the fewer pain joints and muscles will experience as they age.
