Swimming > weightlifting
Swimming > weightlifting
Background story
I have tracked my rather irregular workouts with my watch for the past few months. I noticed a pattern: swimming ✨feels physically easier✨ and uses more calories than weight lifting and kickboxing.
I figured it was just me, or maybe my data was wrong.
Enter research
I used ChatGPT (with browser plugin) to research this. It corroborated what I thought.
Swimming does indeed use more calories.
It’s because:
- it engages nearly all major muscle groups
- your body works harder to stay warm because water conducts heat away more so than air
It also ✨feels✨ easier because:
- there is less impact on joints/bones
- water is more efficient at dissipating heat than air, so you don’t feel as hot and sweaty
Conclusion
To me, if the aim is to use more calories with maximal ease, this means swimming is the way to go.
Now, ChatGPT pointed me to some studies (like 9+ of them). I didn’t read them and I’m too lazy to paste them in here. DYOR. Bye 👋🏻