What muscles does swimming work?

Question

I swim on a daily basis for a swim team at least 2 hrs a day. i wonder what makes swimming so different from other athletic sports?

Answer 1

Swimming is a great cardiovascular workout.

Because swimming is the one endurance activity that depends more on the upper body than the legs, it's also great for upper body tone. I still think that among endurance athletes, swimmers have the most aesthetically pleasing physiques -- muscular, but not beefy looking.

The only drawback to swimming is that it doesn't recruit your leg muscles that much. The problem has two aspects. First, our leg muscles are much bigger than our upper body muscles, so swimming does not really work a major portion of our total muscle mass. Second, swimming is a non-impact sport. It's great for rehabilitating a knee or ankle, but not great for maintaining bone density.

Answer 2

Swimming works every major muscle group in your body, along with most of the minor groups.  It's GREAT for working out!  One of the best things about swimming is that unlike other sports and types of working out, swimming has minimal, if any, pressure on your joints.  So unline football players, you aren't going to have knee, shoulder, back, neck, ankle, or wrist problems; and unless you're blind, you won't have any concussions!  LOL--i love swimming!

Answer 3

Almost all of them: stomach/abs, all legs, all arms, neck, all. Especially if you do butterfly but front crawl, back crawl and breaststroke aren't bad. Less muscles if you do 'drills' such as skulling (no legs, just practices the pulling part of front or back crawl, you can go head or feet first on your back or front) or dolpin kick (dolphin kick is butterfly without arms).