Calories Burned: Swimming Vs Running

We live in a day and time where people are slowly becoming lazy and their lifestyles are becoming progressively more and more hectic. To add insult to injury, our diet nowadays more or less only consists of refined food. Thus, it is no surprise then that health conscious people are always trying to find out ways by which they can lose weight fast. This is where the various types of exercise and workouts come into the picture. People are often wondering whether the calories burned while swimming are higher than that while running and jogging.

Calories Burned while Swimming
One needs to understand that there are many factors that will affect the calories burned while swimming. This includes the weight of the swimmer, amount of distance that is swum, the effort that is taken to swim the distance, the type of stroke, etc. Thus, in short, many factors will actually decide the amount of calories burned and the resultant weight loss. The American College of Sports Medicine says that it depends 'on the velocity of movement and the stroke being used, but it is also influenced by the skill of the swimmer'. This could be one of the reasons why calories burned by water aerobics are higher than the simple swimming strokes. Given below is a table that will help you understand the amount of calories that are burned while swimming according to the stroke on an hourly basis.

Swimming Activity	130 lbs	155 lbs	190 lbs
Swimming treading water with moderate effort	236	281	345
Swimming technique of treading water with vigorous effort	590	704	863
Synchronized swimming	472	563	690
Swimming sidestroke in general	472	563	690
Swimming at a leisurely pace	354	422	518
Swimming butterfly style in general	649	774	949
Swimming breast stroke style in general	590	704	863
Swimming backstroke style in general	472	563	690
Swimming laps in freestyle with moderate effort	472	563	690
Swimming laps in freestyle with vigorous effort	590	704	863

Reference: Department of Health and Family Services
If you wish to know the calories burned in swimming for 30 minutes, then you can divide the above given amounts by two. As an example, a person who weighs 110 lb normally burns around 7.7 calories/minute swimming at a 50/yard per minute pace. Calculating further, there are a total of 1760 yards in a mile and 1650 yards in an official swim mile. So this person will burn 271 calories at the above mentioned pace. Meanwhile, a swimmer that weighs about 200 lbs, swimming at the same pace will burn 14.2 calories/minute. This comes to around 500 calories that burn while swimming a distance of one mile. On an average, 700 calories will be burned per hour considering that the person's body weight is around 140 lb.

Calories Burned while Running
As is the case with swimming, calories burned in running on a treadmill or a jogging track will also depend on a lot of factors. These include the person's running speed, weight of the person, the amount of distance covered, time taken, the company that the person has brought along (just kidding about the last one!). If calories need to be calculated according to a specific time frame, like calories burned in running for 30 minutes, then this will also depend on many factors. Given below are details regarding the calories burned while running a mile.

Weight of the Person (in pounds)	Distance	Calories Burned
100	1 mile	65
105	1 mile	68
110	1 mile	72
115	1 mile	75
120	1 mile	78
125	1 mile	81.5
130	1 mile	85
135	1 mile	82.5
140	1 mile	91
145	1 mile	95
150	1 mile	98
155	1 mile	101
160	1 mile	105
165	1 mile	107.5
170	1 mile	111
175	1 mile	115
180	1 mile	117.5
185	1 mile	121.5
190	1 mile	124.5
195	1 mile	127.5
200	1 mile	131
205	1 mile	134
210	1 mile	137.5
215	1 mile	140
220	1 mile	143.5
225	1 mile	147.5
230	1 mile	150
235	1 mile	153
240	1 mile	156.5
245	1 mile	160
250	1 mile	163

Although nothing can be said definitively, most people concur that swimming almost always ends up burning more calories when compared to running for the same duration of time. Most fitness experts do concur that as swimming is a full body workout, where even the arms are used, it does lead to a more exhaustive amount of workout. Most people believe that it is advisable for people who regularly run, to instead try out swimming whenever they reach a plateau on their weight loss program. This way, they can manage to burn more calories by switching their exercise routine. The best way though to ensure maximum weight loss is to check which type of exercise suits you.