Water Fitness Making Splash Pool Exercises Provide Aerobic Workout Without Trauma Of Land-Based Fitness
Six heads bobbed up and down, some in time to the ‘50s hit “Yakety Yak” blaring from a boombox.
Waves splashed over the edge of the pool as people scissor-kicked and sliced their arms through the water. The instructor stopped, pausing halfway through an hour-long class of water fitness, and had the exercisers check their heart rates.
“In the ‘60s it was tennis, in the ‘70s the running craze. It was aerobics in the ‘80s and in the ‘90s, it is water,” said water fitness pioneer Lynda Huey.
In 1986, she developed the “Waterpower Workout” based on her personal training with injured Olympic athletes at the ‘84 Summer Games in L.A.
In addition to aerobic-type exercises, people are also walking and running in swimming pools, using the water’s resistance instead of gravity to provide the workout. The water’s buoyancy eases the pounding trauma of land-based exercises.
Huey has had to deal with stereotypes about water exercises being used only by elderly patients with arthritis or muscular disorders.
“We had to break the stigma in people’s minds of little old ladies in shower caps out there in the pool. Once they saw a Bo Jackson or a Wilt Chamberlain or a Carl Lewis in the pool, they changed their minds.”
Water exercise is not simply moving gym-style aerobics into the pool. An instructor must adapt the moves, taking into account the resistance of the water, which slows the speed of movement, as well as the buoyancy that allows for broader, ballet-like lunges and higher, jumping exercises.
“You can’t just take a land aerobics person and say, ‘OK, get in the water and do a water aerobics class.’ The water speed is different than land speed,” said L.A. city recreation aquatic director Renee Peace.
Water fitness instructors design classes intended to draw a broad range of people.
“Over the past five years, we are starting to see an increase in men. The programs are less dancy, and more sports oriented,” said Julie See, president of the Aquatic Exercise Association, a nonprofit organization that has certified more than 11,000 water fitness instructors since 1986.
Triathletes use deep water exercise to stay in shape, adding extra benefit to their workout by wearing devices that increase water resistance and buoyancy.
“You don’t have to be able to swim; you don’t get your face wet or your hair wet. It’s a non-threatening activity,” said John Spannuth, head of the nonprofit U.S. Water Fitness Association in Boynton Beach, Fla. “Who ever heard of a person falling and breaking their ankle in the water?”
Even pregnant women, who can’t take the jarring moves of land aerobics, can participate in step aerobic classes comfortably in the water with special equipment that won’t float away.
People with hip replacements can do lunges with the approval of their doctors. And people recovering from surgery or illness join group classes.
“It is so refreshing. I don’t get bored with it like other exercise programs. I don’t find it difficult or straining. It looks easy, but you can make it as hard as you want,” said Terri Severin, 45, a marketing consultant, who has fibromyalgia, an illness characterized by chronic pain and stiffness of muscles.
Even though water fitness benefits a broad range of people, it can be harmful for the overeager. Beginners beguiled by the cool comfort of the water tend to overexercise. Huey says the heart rate in water is lower for athletes and higher for the unfit or obese. Instructors must watch for exercisers going beyond their limits.
Susan Landau, one of Huey’s instructors, said injuries, while rare, can happen if a beginner does the exercise incorrectly.
However, most instructors worry more about attitude adjustment than injury.
“One of our problems is re-educating people to what fun is,” said Spannuth.
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