How to Tone the Stomach With Swimming

Swimming is one of the most effective exercises for toning and strengthening the stomach muscles. Not only is it one of the best cardiovascular workouts, but it will help strengthen muscles throughout your body and may improve your posture and endurance level over time. Swimming exercises performed consistently will help you tone your stomach and keep it in good shape throughout the year.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Swimming pool
• Kickboard

1. Swim laps doing your favorite swim stroke. Each stroke works different muscle groups in a variety of ways, but it is important to tone your entire body in order to get good results with your stomach muscles. Some of the most popular swim strokes for toning the stomach are the breast stroke, the back stroke and the butterfly stroke.
2. Try water walking as a swimming exercise to tone your stomach. While walking across the shallow end of the pool, lift your knee up towards your chest keeping your back as straight as possible. Concentrate on tightening your abdominal muscles each time you pull your knee up to your chest.
3. Move to the deeper end of the pool to perform leg lifts that will help tone your stomach. Steady yourself against one of the walls of the pool with your head comfortably above the water and lift one leg at a time up towards your chest. Alternate between lifting each leg as quickly as possible to provide a good cardiovascular workout to exercise your abdominal muscles.
4. Tread water in the deep end of the pool for 1 minute, doing your best to avoid stopping. Rest for 1 minute and repeat 5 times. Treading water will give your entire body a good workout, especially your stomach muscles if you keep them tight while treading.
5. Hold a kickboard to your chest while kicking on your back to work your stomach muscles. Do your best to keep your body, especially your legs and feet, as close to the water's surface as possible.

Tips & Warnings

• Use swimming to tone your stomach if you are interested in a safe workout--it has one of the lowest rates of injury of any type of exercise. Swimming is beneficial for people with all different body types and is usually considered safe, under proper supervision, for children, pregnant women and senior citizens.
• Ask about swimming classes at your local gym or swim club. This is a good way for both beginner and intermediate swimmers to learn the proper techniques for different swim strokes and swimming-related exercises.
• Always try to swim with a partner or swim in pools with a certified lifeguard present.