Going on a seaside vacation during the summer is a good idea, especially since swimming and sun can benefit your health. However, there are some basic health precautions that you should take beforehand, such as warming up for three to five minutes before swimming, choosing seawater instead of fresh-water pools and staying away from the sun during peak hours. In this topic, we will guide you to have a healthy summer vacation.

It is summer time and most of you are on or will go on summer vacations. It is not surprising that talk of summer vacations generally brings to mind going to coastal cities. When going on a seaside vacation, though, there are several factors you should keep in mind and be cautious about. This includes swimming in pools or the sea, sunbathing, playing under the sun, eating at hotels and basically all uncontrolled parts of your vacation. There is no doubt that a noble steed of summer sports is swimming. Of course, it is not bad at all; actually, it is more special than you think. In the sweltering heat, besides offering a refreshing dip, swimming brings numerous health benefits as well. For instance, one of the physical benefits it provides is working the invisible muscle groups of your body, almost all of them.

Swimming is one of the best sports

Staying in the water for hours on end will not tire as you as much as an hour spent sweating it out at the gym. The most important reason for this is the water supports your weight. When you enter a body of water and the water level reaches your neck, you will have to support only 10 percent of your body weight. Thus, you will work against less resistance. Therefore, if you think your activity is not as good just because you are not swimming like a competitive swimmer, you are wrong. Every form of swimming, even the smallest amount of it, helps burn calories.

There are several swimming calorie calculators designed to measure your energy expenditure. In general, you will burn 60 calories when you swim for 10 minutes with a front stroke, 80 calories with the back stroke, 100 calories when you swim freestyle and 150 calories swimming butterfly.

Research that compares swimming to other sports presents interesting results. A study examined mortality rates in a specific age range of those who prefer to walk and run versus those who prefer to swim as a regular exercise activity. The results overwhelmingly favor swimming. The death rate in the particular age range of those who prefer swimming in the research study was less than 50 percent of those who preferred walking instead of swimming. Additionally, studies conducted in recent years have shown that the anti-inflammatory effect due to swimming reduces the risk of heart disease, speeds up weight loss, reduces the risk of diabetes and lowers cholesterol levels.

How to swim properly

Swimming helps make you healthy, yes, but only if do it the right way. As in other sports, you must warm up before you begin your workout. You can keep the warm up time short – 3-5 minutes is enough to prepare your body for swimming, since swimming will not be harsh on your muscles. You can easily find warm-up exercises for swimming on the Internet, which mainly includes lunge forward, TR 90/90 movement and stretching exercises. These are all necessary simple exercises that are enough to warn and prepare your muscles before swimming.

As a general piece of advice, I recommend adding swimming to your lifestyle all year around. Summer months and working schedules often limit people’s ability to swim, and the majority of those who love swimming choose either indoor or outdoor pools. In fact, there are no major differences in terms of health effects between swimming in the sea or in pools. Indoor or outdoor pools provide similar optimal health conditions as clear, clean sea water. Seawater may have additional benefits to your nose, sinuses and skin lesions. But they are roughly the same in terms of exercising benefits.

With all those extra benefits, however, swimming in the sea is the better choice. If your opportunities require you to swim in the pool but not in the sea, you must ensure the pool’s cleanliness. You need to pay attention to these factors:

The water should be clear and clean.

The area around the pool must be paved with smooth and non-slippery stones.

There should never be an odor in the pool. The density of chemical odor is one of the odors that should not be felt in a pool. There would not be a chemical smell where there is enough circulation. If you feel disturbed by a chemical smell in the pool, it means that there is a circulation problem.

If the pool pump and filtration filters are working as they should, you can easily hear their sound. Listen for the sound before you start swimming.

Swimming outside, you should always be aware of the big picture that may threaten your health: Sun safety and what you can do to protect yourself. You should always avoid the sun during its peak hours. Although it differs by region, this is generally between 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. These are accepted to be the most dangerous hours for sun exposure since skin-damaging ultraviolet radiation from the sun hits you, even on cloudy days. You should also wear protective clothing against the sun. I know, most would love to get a tan! But you can get your tan in the afternoon instead of baking yourself under the sun.

Protective wear is just like what you generally wear, but they should be extra light so that you won’t sweat a lot and lose water. And, of course, you should apply sunscreen. When it is summer, every specialist talks about health options in sunscreens. So I don’t want to give redundant information about them. But I have heard lately that some people claim that sunscreen use encourages excessive sun exposure. As a result, increases the risk of skin cancer. Well, there is no strong literature supporting this claim. But we do advice the use of sunscreens because research has shown that use of sunscreen can reduce the risk of malign melanoma, the most serious type of skin cancer.