Is swimming a good exercise for skinny people

Question

I am underweight according to my BMI. I am male, my height is 183cm and I weigh 60 kg. I started to swim regularly in the last month. Mostly I will be doing free style.

Will this routine reduce my weight more?

I don't want lose any more weight.

Answer 1

Swimming is good for people of any size. Your weight loss/gain will be determined by your diet. If you don't want to lose any more weight, eat more!

Short answer: Keep swimming! It's a great way to build muscle and endurance.

EDIT: I want to elaborate a bit. I usually try to spend the same amount of time writing an answer, as the asker spends writing the question, but this is a particularly good, albeit short, question.

The reason why swimming is so undeniably good, is that it provides so much of the same benefits as you would gain frm other exercises, without so much as a fraction of the same risk of injury.

Cardio

Swimming is an excellent cardio exercise. The water provides a much greater resistance than air, which means that the amount of calories spent per unit of distance, is much greater than when you run/walk/cycle/ski etc.

Additionally, you have the opportunity to swim underwater to test the progress of your lung capacity. It also serves to help you with your efficiency, because the more energy you spend per stroke, the faster you'll need to resurface for oxygen.

Strength

Swimming provides a full-body strength program. Certain muscles are obviously doing more work than others, but swimming can be done in so many ways that variety comes very naturally to any swimmer. And doing all this against the superior resistance you get from water, makes it very ideal.

You have the front crawl, the trudgen, the butterfly, the breaststroke, the backstroke, the sidestroke, the doggy paddle, the survival travel stroke, finswimming, one-arm-one-leg, flutter back, feet first, corkscrew, gliding, turtlestroke, oarstroke... All of which give different distributions of effect. But even if you pick just 3 favorites, and stick with them, you'll still enjoy great results!

Then, you also have the lifesaving strokes in an equal amount of variety. And also the floating techniques.

Answer 2

You already have an excellent answer. I just want to suggest that you consider that body weight can be bone, muscle, fat, water, etc., and that focusing on weight alone is overly simplistic. If you don't exercise and eat potato chips, you will gain likely weight in the form of fat. If you exercise you can gain weight in the form of muscle. You'll obviously be healthier from more muscle and less fat.

So, swim away, and eat a healthy diet to support good nutrition and muscle development.