Exercise in Water

College of Dupage Nursing Student  Gavin West shared with Healthy Lombard that exercise in water has been shown to have a wide array of benefits on middle-aged women’s physical fitness. According to a study by Pusan National University, where they took 24 middle-aged women and put them in a control group and a swimming group and tracked their progress.

The swimming group swam 3x a week for 60 minutes a session and showed statistically significant progress in body fat percentage, total cholesterol, total triglycerides, and flexibility. Progress within the swimming group was also statistically significant for cardiovascular endurance and HDL-C improvement as well when not compared to the control group but just within the group.

A consideration for middle-aged women who start regularly swimming is they can be at risk for the development of osteoporosis as weight-bearing exercise is important to prevent this. As such a weight-bearing exercise such as walking or dancing can be useful in addition to water exercise to promote strong bones and good overall health.

Works cited

Lee, B. A., & Oh, D. J. (2015). Effect of regular swimming exercise on the physical composition, strength, and blood lipids of middle-aged women. Journal of exercise rehabilitation, 11(5), 266–271. doi:10.12965/jer.150242

Couple Photo by Tristan Le from Pexels