Category: water fitness

Exercise to Music

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DSCN0422    It’s fun to exercise to music! Music is a great motivator. It helps you maintain a cadence so that you stay on track and achieve the desired intensity. It also makes the workout seem to go faster.

If you are working out in the gym, you can plug your headphones into your iPod and use whatever playlist you like. If you are exercising in your backyard pool, you can turn on your sound system and play your favorite musical artist. It’s not that simple if you are teaching a water fitness class. Copyright laws state that musicians have the right to charge a fee for the use of their music in public performance, and a water fitness class is considered a public performance.

ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) and BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated) are the two largest companies worldwide that offer services to enable fitness professionals to access and use music without needing to contact each artist individually. Facilities that offer fitness classes must pay the appropriate ASCAP or BMI fees. Instructors should buy their music from companies that pay appropriate reproduction fees to produce CDs and music downloads for fitness applications. Some of these music companies are:

Dynamix  www.dynamixmusic.com

Muscle Mixes   www.musclemixes.com

Power Music     www.powermusic.com

Yes Fitness Music     www.yesfitnessmusic.com

Music can be purchased as CDs or downloads. A variety of titles are available or you can create your own playlists. For a shallow-water class, 125-150 beats per minute (BPM) is recommended. I personally like 130-140 BPM for my shallow-water classes. In deep-water classes, the drag forces of the water and increased range of motion require a slower cadence. 100-135 BPM is recommended, which is typical of music created for step classes. I like 126-128 BPM for my deep-water classes.

If you are playing a CD, you need a battery operated CD player or one plugged into an electrical outlet installed with Ground Fault Interrupters (GFIs). Do not adjust any knobs on the CD player with wet hands. Most CDs play 45 minutes or an hour. If your CD is 45 minutes and your class is an hour long and you are teaching in the water, either teach the last 15 minutes without music, or dry your hands very carefully before re-starting the CD. If you are teaching from the deck, this is not a problem.

If you downloaded a playlist to your iPod or MP3, you will need some type of speaker to plug it into. Again, you do not want to handle the equipment with wet hands. With a download, you can make the playlist the exact length of your class. You can even add cool down music for the stretches at the end of class. Apps are available that can adjust the tempo of your music so that you can play your download at 130 BPM for strength training with equipment one day, and 140 BPM for cardio another day. Be sure to listen to the music at the lower or faster speeds to make sure the voices don’t sound either draggy or like chipmunks.

If you choreograph your moves to specific songs, then you will use that playlist for that lesson plan every time you teach it. I prefer to create lesson plans that work with any of my playlists. Having a variety of lesson plans and a variety of playlists allows you to mix and match and change things around often. Variety is the spice of life!

See you in the pool!

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deep water / shallow water / water fitness / water fitness instructor class

Exercises for Balance

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Every 14 seconds an older adult is treated in the emergency room for a fall. Every 29 minutes an older adult dies from a fall related injury. Fear of falling often causes an individual to shorten his/her stride, shuffle the feet, and bend forward to see where the feet are. Ironically, this increases the risk of falling.

It is important to know how to recover from a fall. First, ease yourself up onto your elbows. Move onto your hands and knees. Then hold onto a firm surface, such as a chair, to support yourself. Facing the chair ease yourself to a standing position. Turn yourself around and sit on the chair.

Balance is the ability to distribute your weight in a way that enables you to hold a steady position or move at will without falling. It is possible to improve balance with exercise, and in fact, balance training is one of the top 10 worldwide trends in the fitness industry. The pool is the perfect place to work on balance. Because the water’s buoyancy and resistance helps support the body, exercises can be done without fear of falling.

There are a number of strategies for improving balance. Some of them are:

  1. Gait Training. Gait training is walking practice with the goal of lengthening the stride and improving confidence while walking.
  2. Core Strength Training. The goal of core strength training is to improve the strength of the postural muscles of the trunk.
  3. Deep-Water Exercise. Deep water exercise is performed, while wearing a flotation device, in water in which a person can remain vertical without the feet touching the floor. Exercisers must aggressively engage the stabilizing muscles of the core to remain upright.
  4. Unpredictable Commands. Unpredictable commands train the body, and in particular the core muscles, to react to the unexpected.
  5. Balance Challenges. Balance challenges are performed with a narrow base of support, such as the feet together, one foot in front of the other or standing on one foot.

For specific exercises using each of these 5 strategies, you are invited to attend my lecture, Exercises for Balance, at the Bone Buddies osteoporosis support group on Saturday, May 14 at 9:45 AM. The meeting is free and open to the public. The location is the Methodist Richardson Medical Center, 2821 George Bush Hwy. Suite 200, Richardson, TX 75082.

Whether you wish to work on improving your own balance or you are an instructor interested in adding balance training to your water fitness class, there lots of exercises to choose from. I hope you’ll join us.

See you in the pool!

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balance exercises / Good Posture / water fitness

Now What?

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My last 4 blog postings have been about building your exercise library. And if you are exercising in the pool on your own or teaching a water fitness class, it is important to build your exercise library. But how do you put it all together into a workout? You could just get in the pool and start doing whatever exercise comes to mind. Would there be a problem with doing the deep water exercises in the order of the pictures below?

The exercises are jumping jacks, jog with a diagonal lean, side to side extension, knee high jog, lateral flexion, power run, cross-country ski, and jog with elevation. All of these are good exercises, but would you want to do them in this order? Of course not! But why not? You would be asking your body to jump right into cardio, drop down into core work, go back into cardio, stretch, go into high intensity cardio, and then you’re done.

It would be much better for your body to give it time to work up to higher intensities and then let it come down gradually. That’s why a good workout has 4 distinctive parts:

  1. The warm up. When you first get into the pool, the water feels cold. That’s because the pool temperature is perhaps 15 degrees cooler than body temperature. You need to acclimate to the environment of the water, warm up the muscles, and increase the metabolic rate in order to be ready for your workout. Start with a vigorous short-lever exercise, such as a knee-high jog. Then add long lever exercises, such as a jumping jack. The warm-up should last from 5-10 minutes.
  2. The conditioning phase. This is the main part of your workout. If your goal is cardiorespiratory endurance, then you want to do exercises that get your heart rate up. Cross-country ski is the perfect exercise for this! You can also increase intensity by adding acceleration, (as in the power run) or elevation. Your conditioning phase lasts 20-50 minutes, depending on how long your want your workout to be or how long your class is.
  3. The cool down.  You need your heart rate to return to its resting state. So you will start to slow down by using lower intensity exercises. The jog with a diagonal lean is a good transitional exercise. It is less vigorous than a power run and it adds in a core challenge to maintain alignment. When the heart rate has come down, you can do toning exercises or core exercises, such as the side to side extension. The cool down lasts 5-15 minutes.
  4. The post stretch. The best time to work on flexibility is now, when the muscles are still warm. Lengthen a muscle and then hold it in a static stretch. Or move the joints through their full range of motion in a dynamic stretch. Aim to stretch for at least 5 minutes.

It may take some planning to put together a workout that is not just a random set of exercises, but your body will thank you.  I’ll bet you can rearrange those pictures above into a better order now.

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See you in the pool!

Chris Alexander

For more information about organizing workouts, see my book, Water Fitness Lesson Plans and Choreography. You can find out how to order it on my website at www.waterfitnesslessons.com

water fitness  

Water Fitness Instructors Needed

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Water fitness instructor class

Do you like being active? Do you enjoy the water? Do you like helping people? Are you interested in being a water fitness instructor?

There is a shortage of water fitness instructors in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Check out the Job Postings on the website of the Metroplex Association of Aquatic Professionals at www.maapdfw.com to see how many facilities are looking for instructors. So how do you go about becoming a water fitness instructor? I’m glad you asked! You can sign up for my class coming up in October.

Beginning Water Fitness Instructor Class

Saturday October 3 and Saturday October 10 – Participants attend both days

Time: 10:00 am to 2:30 pm

Cost: $60 for residents of McKinney, $65 for non-residents

Location: McKinney Senior Pool, 1400 S. College Street, McKinney, TX 75069

To register, go to https://webtrac.mckinneytexas.org or stop by the pool and register in person or call 972-547-7495 for assistance.

The class gives basic information necessary to teach a water fitness class.

Bones & muscles     Heart rate    pool water    Aquatic equipment

Some of the things you will learn are:

  • The names of the muscles and how they work during exercise
  • How to increase and decrease intensity so that you achieve your target heart rate
  • The properties of water and how to manipulate them during a water fitness class
  • How to use various kinds of equipment

The class is ideal for people who want some idea of what they have to learn before they sign up to take a certification test, for people who have lots of questions, and for people who do better with hands on experience than with just reading a book.  The next step is to sign up to get a certification. A good entry level certification is offered by the United States Water Fitness Association (USWFA). You do not have to take my Beginning Water Fitness Instructor course in order to get their certification. If you have some fitness experience and don’t feel like you need any additional training, you can contact the USWFA directly at www.uswfa.org. The cost for a certification is $247. They will send you a water fitness instructor manual, an open book test, and some forms to fill out, which you will bring to a National Testing Day (NTD). At the NTD you take a closed book test and teach an 8-minute sample class. The instructor-trainer tells you at the end of the day whether you passed. After that, you can contact some of those facilities looking for instructors and get your own class.

See you in the pool!

water fitness / water fitness instructor class   /

How to Train for Good Posture

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You can’t really be physically fit if you don’t have good posture. Therefore you have made a commitment to train for good posture in your water fitness class. Great! This may require you to rethink how you perform the exercises. You will need to be sure to keep your sternum lifted, your shoulders level, and your core braced so that you maintain your good posture no matter what exercise you are doing. Sometimes in your eagerness to increase intensity and burn calories you may inadvertently take your spine out of neutral alignment. Let’s take a look at some common exercises and see how this happens.  All of the photos show the exercises performed with bad form.

High knee jog

Knee High Jog.  This is a great exercise for increasing the heart rate and burning calories. But sometimes in your enthusiasm to increase intensity you may bring the knees too high, as in this picture, putting pressure on the low back and possibly aggravating the sciatic nerve. Bring the knees up just until the upper leg is parallel to the floor.

 

Leaning inner thigh lift

Inner Thigh Lift.  This exercise improves hip flexibility because you are moving the leg in a diagonal plane. You might decide to increase your range of motion by touching your ankle with your opposite hand. But if you have to bend forward to reach the ankle, as in this picture, you are taking your spine out of neutral. Better to touch the inner thigh or knee instead.

 

Leaning hopscotch

Hopscotch.  This exercise works the hamstrings. It is more important to maintain neutral alignment than to actually touch the heel with your opposite hand. If you have to bend to the side to reach the heel, as in this picture, then it is better to just swipe at the heel with your hand.

 

Too high kick

High Kick.  This is a long lever exercise so it takes more effort and burns more calories than its short lever cousin, the knee high jog. The goal here is not to get the foot out of the water though. If you find yourself leaning backward to get the leg higher, as in this picture, you are bringing the leg too high and taking the spine out of neutral.

 

Arching rocking horse

Rocking Horse.  This exercise works multiple leg muscles and also challenges balance because it takes the body off-axis. Watch out for an overly enthusiastic rocking motion though. Arching the back while shifting the weight to the back leg, as in this picture, puts a lot of stress on the low back.

 

Greater intensity levels can be achieved when the exercises are performed with good posture and the power is put into the arm and leg movements. You might be surprised at how hard you can work while keeping the sternum lifted, the shoulders level and the core braced.  See you in the pool!

Good Posture / water fitness   /