People of all ages and levels of fitness can take part. Swimming, especially the front crawl that requires steady, rhythmic movements helps to develop aerobic fitness, suppleness, and muscular strength. Swimming is a fabulous workout, which is not only beneficial for the human body, but, also is a great fun to perform, especially during summers. In fact, in summer time, swimming serves as an excellent exercising choice to beat the summer heat. It provides you the best of both worlds, if on one hand, it provides the cardio benefits of running, then on the other hand, it paves way for achieving weight training strength building benefits. Swimming is a healthy activity that can be continued for a lifetime – and the health benefits swimming offers for a lifetime are worth the effort it takes to get to the pool. Regular swimming builds endurance, muscle strength and cardio-vascular fitness. It can serve as a cross-training element to your regular workouts. Before a land workout, you can use the pool for a warm-up session. Swimming with increasing effort to gradually increase your heart rate and stimulate your muscle activity is easily accomplished in the water. Swimming does burn calories at a rate of about 3 calories a mile per pound of bodyweight. If you weigh 150 lbs. and it takes you 30 minutes to swim one mile (1,760 yards or 1,609 meters), then you will be using about 900 calories in one hour. Relax and swim with a very low effort. Although an excellent activity, swimming in cold water may not be a suitable part of a slimming program because it can stimulate the deposition of fats under the skin to act as an insulating layer.