Why Swimming May Be the Best Exercise for Older Adults

Just keep swimming, older, Australian men. A new study, published in the American Journal of epidemiology, found that the water exercise reduces the risk of falls.
Australian researchers compared the type of male with the exercise over 1,700 men aged 70 and older did — swimming, golfing, doing calisthenics, working out on treadmills or bikes, or lawn bowling, which is not unlike Bocce ball — to the likelihood they would experience a fall over a four-year period. Men who swam were 33 percent less likely to fall compared to men logging other kinds of exercise. More important is swimming best standing balance, which means that when they move the required to remain stationary for 30 seconds.

"Unlike [with] land-based sports, swimmers are required to create their own base of support and at the same time, to produce a coordinated movement of both upper and lower extremities," Dafna Merom, an associate professor of physical activity and health at University of Western Sydney, Australia, told Live Science.
While Merom didn't find men exercising out of the pool were any less likely to fall, she does think there is reason to believe swimming specifically works to protect against fall-related injuries and trauma — a major public health problem in older adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In addition, t he low impact of water means that it is not tense muscles and joints as, say, strength training does. So moving a sweat session to the pool can increase strength and flexibility.
However, Merom added, the study was observational, “so the results show a link, but not a cause-and-effect relationship between swimming and a lower risk of falls.” This may be that men have better leg strength and posture more easily resolved in water and land. Further research is needed to determine if there is a causal relationship or not.

But older men living in suburban Australia aren't the only ones who can benefit from swimming. The CDC also reported just two and a half hours per week of swimming can decrease the risk of chronic illness. A new (ahem) wave of fitness classes, like aqua zumba and yoga, are known to draw crowds of all ages.