Swimming is a great all-around workout that engages lots of different muscle groups, enhances cardiovascular health, and promotes your overall fitness and health. There are four primary strokes—freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly and if you know anything about swimming, you’ll know that the energy expenditure varies quite a bit between the different strokes. Understanding which swimming stroke uses the most energy can help swimmers like you tailor your training to meet your specific fitness goals.
Which Swimming Stroke Uses The Most Energy?
Butterfly Stroke
The butterfly stroke is renowned for its intensity and complexity and as such is the stroke which uses the most energy in one burst. It requires a synchronised movement of both arms in a windmill motion, coupled with a powerful dolphin kick. It’s a tricky stroke to learn and even harder to master.
This stroke engages the chest, shoulders, arms, core, and legs, making it a full-body workout. Due to its high demand for strength and coordination, the butterfly stroke uses more energy and burns calories than the other swimming strokes. On average, swimming butterfly can burn around 450 calories in 30 minutes. This gives it the top position as the stroke which uses the most energy whilst swimming.
Front Crawl
Front crawl, often referred to as the freestyle stroke is the fastest of all swimming strokes and is often chosen by swimmers for its efficiency and speed.
When you are swimming the front crawl you’ll find it engages the back muscles, shoulders, and legs. While overall it is less demanding, energy-wise, than the butterfly, it still offers a high-calorie burn, averaging around 300 calories per 30-minute session.
Freestyle's balance between speed and energy expenditure makes it a popular choice for swimmers. It is more likely you will burn more energy overall in one session swimming front crawl as you will be able to maintain your pace longer. This is a good stroke for those aiming to improve cardiovascular health and endurance.
Breaststroke
Breaststroke is the stroke marked out by its unique frog-like kick and simultaneous arm movement. It’s the slowest of the competitive strokes but still provides a thorough workout for the chest, triceps, legs, and your core. It’s a good one to pace yourself with when you are going for a longer swim in the pool.
Doing the breaststroke will burn you around 200 calories in 30 minutes. Despite its lower calorie burn, it offers a better cardiovascular workout compared to other strokes and is excellent for improving flexibility and muscle tone. It’s overall a very useful stroke which is overlooked in the pool.
Backstroke
Backstroke involves an alternating arm stroke with a flutter kick while lying on the back. It is super effective when you are looking to improve your posture and strengthen your back and core muscles.
In terms of calories burned, you can expect this to be around 250 calories per 30-minute swim. As it uses the back and shoulder muscles, you’ll find it’s ideal for swimmers who are looking to improve their upper body strength and overall posture.
Factors Influencing Energy Expenditure
While the butterfly stroke leads the way in calorie burning there are a number of other things to think about if you are looking at which swimming stroke burns the most energy.
Intensity and Speed: Swimming at a higher intensity will increase your overall rate of burning energy across all strokes.
Technique Efficiency: It’s important to master and then use the proper technique as this will reduce drag and energy wastage.
Swimmer's Physique: You have to factor in your weight and composition as this will affect the number of calories burned. Heavier swimmers are likely to use more energy.
Duration of Swim: Those swimming longer sessions will burn more energy than a shorter one.
Incorporating Strokes into Training
Using all four strokes during your workout or swim training can strengthen and tone all your muscles, whilst improving your posture, and cardiovascular system and giving you a strong energy burn.
Butterfly: If you can swim this stroke, try to incorporate short intervals to build strength and power.
Front Crawl: We’d suggest using this stroke for longer-distance training to improve your endurance and cardiovascular health.
Breaststroke: A good one to include in sessions focused on technique and flexibility.
Backstroke: Swimmers should add this stroke to improve posture and balance muscle development.
Now you know the different energy required to do each swimming stroke, so you can tailor your workouts to align with your fitness goals. Take a look at our post about the best pool exercises for weight loss and also find out how many laps in a pool is a half mile.
The butterfly stroke is the one that uses the most energy but isn’t necessarily the one that you sustain for a long period. Mix it up and you’ll find your swims more efficient and effective on your body, and health and also for the longevity of your swim sessions.