Calories Burned in Swimming Vs. Running

This article is specially posted for my dear energetic colleague who does swimming 3km per day... :p So it's the fact that swimming is a better exercise compared to running in terms of overall even though running might burned off much calories :)

Running and swimming are both extremely good sources of aerobic exercise. Given a bit of analysis, however, running has the edge on effort versus calories burned during moderate to vigorous exercise. Swimming involves having the body submerged, nearly weightless, compared to running, which involves not only carrying the full weight of the athlete's body, but the full extent of wind resistance against that body.

Calories
A basic analysis reveals that running burns more calories than swimming for a similar effort. Based completely on your weight, running for an hour at a 12-minute, 10-minute and 8-minute per mile pace, the average calories burned are 450 to 700, 600 to 850 and 800 to 1,200 calories. Swimming at a moderate pace for the same time period burns 450 to 900 calories.

Pace/Stroke
For people of the same size, weight and build, running pace and swimming stroke/effort are what determine the maximum value of the exercise. Basically, the faster you run without going into oxygen dept, the more calories you burn. Additionally, the more aggressive the stroke (butterfly is most aggressive, side stroke the least) plus the effort (vigorous versus gentle) determines the number of calories burned. With a relatively direct comparison, similar efforts in running burns more calories than swimming.

Wind
Although water resistance is more severe than wind resistance, in running outdoors, wind has a greater impact than that of water in a swimming pool. Swimming in a pool provides a consistent resistance versus running into a headwind or tailwind, which is more variable. Running on a treadmill provides no wind resistance and is, for the most part, unrelated to the effort expended while swimming.

Weight
Runners carry their own weight plus the weight of their clothing and shoes and wind resistance on their runs. Swimmers are basically weightless throughout their workouts, so their effort-to-weight ratio is much narrower than that of runners.

Varying Terrain
When running is done outdoors, it involves varying terrain, but swimming in a pool is completely consistent across the length of your workout. This makes your running workout more severe, on average, than your average swimming workout. As a result, you burn more calories running than swimming--on average.