Everyone wants to have that perfectly toned body build they admire when they see most celebrities.
Apart from maintaining a good diet plan, one of the best ways to be in great shape is to always exercise.
This makes a lot of people ask is it better to swim or run.
When thinking if it is better to swim or run, you have to consider things like your experience level in swimming, magnitude of calories to be burnt as well as other things like the time of the day.
These are some of the things that will help you determine if at all you should swim or run when you want to exercise in your leisure time.
What Determines If It Is Better To Swim Or Run
1) Level Of Experience In Swimming
When it comes to choosing between swimming or running when you want to exercise, one of the most important things you have to consider has to do with your level of experience.
When it comes to sports like running, you do not really need an experience to kick start your running.
As far as you have two functional legs, you are good to go.
But when it comes to swimming, the reverse is also the case.
Unlike running that you can just wake up and engage in, swimming is the direct opposite.
This is where your level of experience in swimming comes in.
Swimming is a very interesting sport when engaged in.
At the same time, swimming is very dangerous when you engage in it without being well skilled.
An unskilled swimmer has a high chance of drowning.
To avoid this, you need to make sure that you get the necessary swimming lessons before you can swim effectively.
But if you cannot swim well, make sure that you stay out of the water especially when there is no other person in the water.
At such times, you need to switch your exercise to running which is more safe for someone that is inexperienced in swimming skills.
2) Condition Of Pool
As a swimmer, you have to know when you have to swim and when not to swim.
This is very important to make sure that you ensure optimum safety when swimming.
One of the things you have to always make sure that you watch out for before entering a pool to swim is the condition of the pool.
This has to do with the hygienic condition of the pool.
For a swimming pool to be safe for swimming, it has to be hygienic enough.
This cuts across being free from debris on top of the water and at the bottom of the water.
Apart from that, the water in the swimming pool has to be treated with the optimum amount of chlorine.
An over chlorinated swimming pool water is also harmful too instead of being of help.
If the pool is hygienic enough and you know how to swim, you can go ahead and swim.
But if you discover that the pool is dirty and not hygienic enough, you have to stay out of such pool water.
To keep your exercise active, you can go into running to make sure that you still exercise your body.
3) Magnitude Of Calories To Be Burnt
When considering if it is better to swim or run, you have to consider the amount of calories that you want to burn.
Swimming might be a sport that covers the whole part of the body, but the magnitude of calories burnt within a period of time cannot be compared to running.
Running is a rigorous sport that leads to fast burning of calories when compared to swimming.
That is one of the reasons why you get tires fast when you are running as compared to when you are swimming.
If you have a short period of time in which you want to burn calories while exercising, then running is more preferable.
But if you want to have a full body workout and burn calories slower than when you run, then you have to get into the water and swim.
4) Security Condition
When it comes to questions like if it is good to swim or run, you have to consider the security condition of the place you are staying.
In some times, going outside can be very risky.
This is usually when there is chaos in a place.
In such a situation, if you are very close to a swimming pool, you have to swim and avoid going into a high risk environment in the name of jogging or running.
If you still want to run, you can do it within where you are that is safe.
Otherwise just get into the water and swim.
You will still catch some fun and burn some calories as well which is a win win situation.
5) Health Condition
Before you embark on either running or swimming, you have to put your health condition into consideration.
When you are not very fit medically, you have to make sure that you avoid things that are going to cause too much stress on your body.
What you have to know is that it is not the same energy that you use to swim that you can use to run effectively especially when done in a group.
Running will require more energy and this is not good for someone that is not medically fit.
In such a case, it is better for you to swim than for you to run.
Swimming will help you enjoy your leisure time well without too much stress on the body.
6) Skills Of Other Members Of The Group
When you are exercising with a group of friends, you have to pay close consideration to the skill set of each member of the group.
This is to help make sure that everyone in the group has a fair share of the fun moment.
If members of the group are good swimmers while few are not but still show interest to swim alongside others, you can opt in for swimming.
But in doing so, make sure that there is adequate floatation devices that will go round the inexperienced ones.
The experienced ones should also keep an eye on the inexperienced ones to make sure that no casualty like drowning occurs by making them swim in the shallow part of the pool.
But if the majority of the group members are very inexperienced in swimming, then it is better to run as a group instead of swimming.
This will help avoid casualties while swimming.
7) Weather Condition
When it comes to determining if it is better to swim or run, you have to consider the weather condition of the environment.
If you are in a cold environment, you have to avoid swimming in the outdoor pool when the weather is very cold.
This is to avoid health casualties from setting in due to cold.
Such health casualties has to do with contacting hypothermia.
Hypothermia is a disease that leads to the reduction in the temperature of the body when you are exposed to cold for a long period of time.
It is very dangerous and leads to death.
That is why it is very advisable to avoid prolonged exposure to cold.
This cuts across avoiding swimming in a water that is too cold.
When the weather is very cold, the exercise you need to engage in is the type that will keep you warm.
One of such is running.
That is why you have to avoid swimming when the weather is very cold.
In cold weather conditions, you can run to help keep your body active.
Running will also help reduce the severity of cold you feel.
8) Body Muscle You Want To Build
When you want to engage in a sport, you need to have a clear objective of the sporting session.
Some people usually exercise wrongly depending on what they want to achieve.
If you want to train your legs muscle and work on your stamina, one of the best sports that will help you achieve great result is running.
This is because when you are running, the part of the body that performs that major task is the legs.
In this situation, the legs muscle are also put to training.
Apart from that, running helps to build stamina a lot.
But if you want to develop the upper part of your body like having a broad shoulder, then swimming is what you should consider not running.
Apart from developing the upper part of the body, swimming helps in working on other parts of the body too.
That is why some people like to call swimming a good full body workout.
Further Reading