Whether you want to lose weight, tone up, or get fit, counting calories can help you achieve your goals. If you're like most people, you should find ways to make this process easier and more enjoyable. Swimming is a fantastic way to mix up your routine and stay calm. But before diving in, you may wonder: How many calories does swimming burn? This blog will answer this question and provide tips to help you increase calorie burn for improved fitness and weight loss results. We will also touch upon the best app to count macros.
Cal AI's calorie tracker can help you understand how many calories swimming burns and learn practical tips to increase that calorie burn for improved fitness and weight loss results.
If you're not a triathlete or competitive swimmer, swimming laps may not be the first thing that comes to mind when considering cardio. But jumping into a pool is a worthwhile workout to mix up your routine.
Pulling yourself through the water can strengthen your entire body—and the calories burned swimming quickly add up.
"Although swimming sometimes seems relatively hard and scary, it's one of the best cardiovascular workouts anyone of any age can do," says Kris Gagne, a registered and certified swim coach with USA Swimming and the American Swimming Coaches Association.
As you continually use just about every muscle to move your body from one end of the pool to the other, "the aerobic work helps strengthen the heart muscle itself, making it more efficient at pumping blood throughout your body," he explains.
Like any physical activity, swimming burns calories by engaging the muscles and increasing energy expenditure. Swimming is an effective exercise because it requires the body to work against water resistance, leading to calorie burn. The number of calories burned swimming varies based on the intensity, duration, and individual factors such as weight and metabolism.
What's more, swimming, which puts pretty much no pressure on your bones and joints, is a low-impact way to burn calories. "The water supports 90 percent of your body," Gagne explains.
If you still need to sell donning goggles, let me remind you of swimming's spectacular benefits.
Swimming is an excellent form of cardio since you're challenging your heart and lungs to pump oxygen-containing blood throughout your system to keep you moving. You're always going to be out of breath after a good session.
In the long run, a swimming habit makes a significant difference: "Studies with the American Heart Association have found that just 30 minutes of swimming a day can reduce coronary heart disease in women by 30 to 40 percent," says Gagne.
Because you have to overcome the resistance of the water when you swim, every stroke helps to build strength in your muscles, says Gagne. Moving your body through the water requires all of your major muscle groups, from your arms to your legs to your core, to get working.
Gagne adds that incorporating different swimming strokes allows you to work your muscles differently within a single workout. These strokes include:
Swimming is a fun way to:
The number of calories you burn varies based on factors like your:
Scientists use the MET, or metabolic equivalent, to calculate calorie burn, which measures how hard your body works relative to rest.
While swimming, your body burns:
For comparison's sake:
The METs and calorie burn for these activities vary based on intensity, too.
Harvard Medical School estimates that in 30 minutes of recreational swimming:
If you turn up the heat and vigorously swim laps for 30 minutes, your calorie burn increases. In this case:
The stroke you select also dramatically impacts how many calories you torch. While a 155-pound [70kg] woman burns about 372 calories in 30 minutes of swimming breaststroke, she'll burn closer to 409 calories in 30 minutes of butterfly.
A number of variables affect how many calories you burn swimming. Body weight, swim speed, and stroke type all play a role.
Your body:
Someone who weighs more will expend more calories than someone who weighs less because it takes more energy to move a larger body than a smaller one. (Which, yes, is considered in the METs formula.)
A larger body will also create more surface area in the water, thus creating more drag resistance. More drag means it takes more energy to push through the resistance, increasing the heart rate and higher caloric expenditure.
Your swim speed:
How fast you move through the water also affects the number of calories you burn while swimming. "The slower you swim, the less energy output there is, resulting in less calories burned," says Beldini.
The faster you swim, the more energy you use. Swimming devices such as pull buoys, pull paddles, parachutes, and bands to increase resistance or drag will also increase your energy output, upping your calorie burn.
Your swim stroke:
And then, of course, the stroke you use factors into calories burned while swimming. "Butterfly is probably the hardest and most technical stroke," says Baxter, which is why it burns the most calories.
When you're doing the stroke, you're simultaneously performing a dolphin kick, and your arms are coming fully overhead, which calls for serious, total-body muscle engagement (especially in your core and upper back), she says.
A crawl is next in line for the number of calories burned swimming. "Every time you perform a stroke, you're also kicking! says Baxter.
"That's the perfect mixture for burning major calories." Breaststroke and backstroke are about equal in terms of caloric outcome. "These two are slower strokes, but you can still burn calories with proper technique," she says.
You might be wondering how many calories each stroke burns. Below are some estimates of the number of calories burned while swimming in each type of stroke. (Estimates are based on a 140-pound adult.
Check out other swim stroke and speed MET estimates here and use this swimming calorie calculator to find your calorie burn.)
These estimates provide a general idea of how swimming can be useful for burning calories. A moderate butterfly stroke can burn up to 748 calories per hour for a person weighing around 150 pounds, making it one of the highest-calorie-burning strokes.
How intense a certain speed or distance feels depends on your fitness level and will significantly impact the total number of calories you burn. Other aspects that affect calorie burn during swimming include:
Body Weight Harvard Medical School estimates that during 30 minutes of recreational swimming, a person assigned female at birth weighing 125 pounds burns approximately 180 calories.
Those weighing 155 pounds burn about 216 calories, and those weighing 185 pounds burn around 252 calories. Intensifying the activity to vigorous lap swimming for the same duration significantly increases calorie burn.
In this case, a 125-pound person assigned female at birth will expend roughly 300 calories. A 155-pound female will use about 372 calories, and a 185-pound female will burn close to 444 calories.
Swimming Conditions It's also worth noting that swimming in natural bodies of water like oceans, rivers, and lakes can increase calorie expenditure due to factors like current resistance and temperature, which may require your body to work harder.
Swimming in colder water also can increase calorie expenditure because your body has to work harder to maintain its core temperature. This thermogenic effect means chilly pools or open-water swims might lead to a higher calorie burn than swimming in warmer water. Swimming Tools Certain types of equipment can also impact calorie burn. Using swimming tools like fins, paddles, or kickboards affects calorie burn by increasing resistance in the water, requiring more effort to move at the same speed or cover the same distance. Adding intensity can lead to a higher calorie expenditure during the swimming session.
You can burn as many (if not more) calories in the pool as you can on the bike or tread as long as you put in the effort. If you run at a 10-minute mile pace, you burn about as many calories in 30 minutes on the tread or pavement as you would in the pool, per Harvard Medical School.
If your pace lands closer to 11-plus minutes per mile, you'll burn more calories in the pool. It's a similar story when it comes to swimming and cycling. Spin those wheels at a moderate pace for 30 minutes on the stationary bike, and a 155-pound [70kg] woman burns about 260 calories.
That's almost 100 fewer calories than 30 minutes of vigorous laps. Kick up the spinning intensity to an all-out effort, though, and that same woman burns about 391 calories in 30 minutes, rivaling 30 minutes of butterfly in the pool (409 calories).
Understanding how many calories swimming burns is a powerful tool for creating and reaching fitness goals, such as managing weight or boosting endurance. Knowing the estimated calorie burn of different swim strokes and intensities, you can adjust your swimming routines to match your goals.
If you're aiming for weight loss, focus on longer sessions of vigorous strokes like butterfly or freestyle to maximize calorie expenditure.
If your goal is to build up endurance, you might incorporate a variety of strokes at moderate intensity, focusing on increasing the duration of your swims over time. Online calculators and fitness trackers are useful for estimating calorie burn more accurately.
These tools often allow you to input individual factors such as weight, age, swim duration, and stroke type, so you get a more personalized estimate of your calorie expenditure and how it fits into the rest of your routine. This data can help you adjust your workouts to stay on track with your fitness goals.
Creating resistance is a great way to boost your calorie burn while swimming. The more resistance you have in the water—whether using equipment or your own body—the more calories you'll burn.
You don't need boring, repetitive laps to create this resistance. Instead, try adding a drag suit to your next swim workout. This is a slightly loose swimsuit that you layer over your go-to Speedo. Swim pros use drag suits to build strength and endurance. You can also try out gear like hand paddles or fins.
Upping your swimming speed means more calories burned, but you don't have to sprint for 30 minutes straight to see big benefits. Whether you're crunched for time or building up your stamina, try using interval training.
Swim as hard as you can for 30 seconds, swim leisurely for 60 seconds, then repeat. Just like HIIT on the tread, breaking up your pool workout allows you to maximize your effort and time while improving your performance and burning calories.
Swimming IMs, or individual medleys, is another way to increase your calorie burn while swimming. An IM consists of swimming each of the four primary strokes back-to-back to switch up the stimulus on your body and, ultimately, turn up your burn.
To try this, swim one lap of butterfly, then a lap of backstroke, then a lap of breaststroke, and finally a lap of freestyle. Use the strokes that feel easiest to you as recovery, or do a few laps of leisurely breaststroke or backstroke after your IM to recover before repeating.
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