Is Swimming Good for Tightening the Thighs & Buttocks?

Swimming is an effective sport for total body fitness. You can work out every muscle while swimming, including your thighs and buttocks. Using the right drills can help you target your thighs and buttocks even more, not to mention that swimming provides a great cardiovascular workout for burning calories and fat.

  1. Muscles Worked Swimming

    • Swimming can be effective for total body fitness, as you really need to use every muscle while swimming. Kicking activates muscles in your legs, while your arms pull forward to generate muscle contractions in your upper body. Your core is activated too, as it keeps everything stabilized. Swimming can be great for toning any part of your body, but there are ways to target the thighs and buttocks.

    Target the Thighs

    • Target the thighs using the breast stroke kick, also called the frog kick. Support your upper body with a floating board or noodle and kick across the pool using the frog kick. The motion activates your buttocks, and outer and inner thigh muscles. Make sure to squeeze your inner thighs close as you pull your knees and feet together. This is the power phase of the kick and will really help to define your thighs.

    Vertical Kick for the Buttocks

    • Target the buttocks with the vertical kick. When doing this drill you aren’t moving anywhere, you’re just using your kick to keep your head above the water. You need to be in the deep end of the pool or in deep water, as you want your legs and toes pointing straight down toward the bottom of the pool. Do the flutter kick, used during freestyle swimming, to keep yourself afloat. You can tread water with your hands for stability or lift them out of the water for a real challenge. Lifting your hands out of the water will sink you further, meaning you’ll have to kick that much harder to keep your head out of the water.

    Fins

    • In a study published in the "Journal Procedia Engineering" in 2010, scientists investigated how fin design and use affected the activity of muscles. Using fins increases the force of muscle contractions in the legs. The researchers also found that a high frequency of kick was better at generating muscle activity than a high-amplitude kick. That is, it’s better to do small kicks fast for toning than bigger, slower kicks. They also found that short fins are better for targeting the buttocks and thighs than long fins. If you want to optimize the toning of your buttocks and thighs while swimming, use a fast kick with short fins.