Category: water fitness

Have Fun in the Pool

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Why it so much fun to exercise in water? It’s because getting into the pool means leaving the world of gravity and entering the world of buoyancy! Buoyancy is the upward force that water exerts on submerged objects. It makes you feel lighter. It takes the weight off your joints. It allows you to jump higher and land softly. It supports you and reduces any fear you might have of falling. It reminds you of the fun you had playing in the pool as a child.

Buoyancy is one of the properties of water that can be harnessed to increase the intensity of your exercise. Any movement toward the pool floor has to work against buoyancy. So instead of focusing on arm lifts, press those arms down, either from the front in a double-arm press-down or from the side in a lat pull-down. In a front kick, focus on pressing the leg down. When kicking side to side, focus on pulling the legs down toward center.

Buoyancy is not the only property of water that makes working in water different from working on land. Water offers more resistance than air and it slows movement quickly. This resistance is called drag resistance. If you increase the surface area you increase the drag resistance. You can increase the surface area by traveling forward with the arms stretched to the side or by traveling forward with the legs farther apart. Increase frontal resistance while traveling sideways by performing exercises that move front to back, such as cross-country ski.

When you push against the water, the water pushes back. If you push harder, the water pushes back harder. This hard pushing is called acceleration. If you push hard enough to double the speed of your movement, you have quadrupled the force. You can therefore control the intensity of your exercise by the amount of force you use with your limbs. It is important to maintain your range of motion with acceleration, since small moves are not as effective for increasing intensity.

When you move a limb in one direction, it will propel the body in the opposite direction. For example, if you sweep your arms to the right, the reaction is that the body moves toward the left. This is called action and reaction. Swimmers use this property of water with their swim strokes. In vertical water exercise we can take advantage of this property to increase intensity by using impeding arm or leg movements. Sweep your arms to the right and move right. Use an arm or leg movement that propels the body forward, but travel backward. Or use an arm or leg movement that propels the body backward, but travel forward.

It is important to understand the properties of water because they make aquatic exercise very different from working on land. They are tools that can be used to increase intensity. And they add to the fun of working out in the water!

See you in the pool!

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Chris Alexander

Benefits of water fitness / water fitness

Water Fitness Instructors Are Needed

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Do you take a water fitness class? Do you like to be in the front of the class so that you always know what is going on? Do you like helping new participants feel comfortable in class? Are you naturally outgoing? Have you thought about becoming a water fitness instructor?

I’d like to invite you to take my Water Fitness Instructor Basic Training class. It is being offered on October 21 and 28 from 10:00 AM – 2:30 PM at the McKinney Senior Pool, 1400 South College Street, McKinney, Texas 75069. Participants need to attend both days. It is an opportunity for you to learn what is required in order to teach a water fitness class. You will not have a certification at the end of class, but you will have a foundation to begin working toward a certification.

We spend a good portion of the first day on anatomy. It is important to know something about the muscles and to be familiar with movement terminology so that you will know what muscles you are using in any given exercise. That way you can plan a well-balanced water fitness class for your participants. The second day includes an open-book quiz to give you practice in using a chart to figure out what muscles you are using in a variety of exercises.

We cover good body alignment, because neutral posture is important for safe exercise. We talk about the fitness recommendations of the American College of Sports Medicine. You will learn ways to judge whether you are working in your target heart rate zone. Since you are exercising in water, you also need to know the properties of water that make water fitness different from land exercise.

Of course we will talk about how to plan a water exercise class. You will learn what the parts of a class are, how to increase and decrease intensity, how to use various types of water fitness equipment safely, and a variety of choreography styles. I also spend some time on contraindications, things to avoid because they might lead to an injury later on. You get a list of websites where you can go for equipment, choreography ideas and music, plus information on how to get certified and how to get continuing education.

I teach a sample class on the first day. You can keep the lesson plan for your own use later on. On the second day, you teach a 5 to 8-minute sample class to give you practice cuing and demonstrating exercises. After that you can get on the sub list for the McKinney Senior Pool. Or you can get started on your certification, so that you will be qualified to teach at any facility you choose. To see a list of facilities in the Dallas area that are looking for instructors, check out the Jobs page of the website of the Metroplex Association of Aquatic Professionals at www.maapdfw.com

If this sounds like something you would like to do, you can register on the McKinney Parks and Recreation website at https://webtrac.mckinneytexas.org On the Home page click the Search button. On the drop down window click Activities. In the Type window click Aquatic Classes. The class is listed at the bottom of page 2. The cost is $60 for McKinney residents and $65 for non-residents. All materials for the class are provided. Click on the address of the pool above for a link to a map to the facility.

I hope to see you there!

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Chris Alexander

shallow water / water fitness / water fitness instructor class

Training for Good Health

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healthy food  The Metroplex Association of Aquatic Professionals (MAAP) offers two continuing education trainings a year. Over the years, Meridan Zerner, MS, RD, CSSD, LD, a dietician with the Cooper Institute, has been the presenter twice. I like Ms. Zerner very much because her health and nutrition advice is easy to understand and follow. I pass the information that I got from her lectures on to my classes in my Tips for the Day.

The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends that all adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity cardiorespiratory exercise a week for good health. You could exercise at a moderate intensity 30-60 minutes a day 5 days a week, or at a vigorous intensity 20-60 minutes a day 3 days a week. In addition they recommend that you do resistance exercises 2-3 days a week and flexibility exercises (stretches) 2-3 days a week.

Ms. Zerner said that the average 50-year-old woman who weighs the same as when she was 20, requires one fourth to one third fewer calories to maintain her weight. That’s why people tend to gain weight as they age. It’s a worthy goal to not gain any more weight. To prevent weight gain, ACSM says that you should get 150-250 minutes of moderate-intensity cardiorespiratory exercise a week. That’s an extra 100 minutes of exercise per week. There are health benefits to losing as little as 10% of your body weight. If your goal is weight loss, then you have to exercise more than 250 minutes a week. And once you lose the weight, you need to continue to get more than 250 minutes of moderate intensity cardiorespiratory exercise every week to prevent the weight from coming back. If that sounds daunting, it’s because it is!

Ms. Zerner says that a better plan than exercise alone is to combine diet and exercise. If you just diet, 25% of the weight you lose will be lean muscle. If you diet and do cardiorespiratory exercise, less of the weight lost will be lean muscle. Add in some resistance exercise and you will not lose – and you may even gain – muscle mass. A good way to combine cardiorespiratory and resistance exercise is to work out in the pool, performing the exercises with power in order to take advantage of the water’s resistance.

Recent research shows that weight loss is not easy, as if we didn’t know that already. A deficit of 3500 calories does not equal a pound lost as was commonly thought. But it’s still fewer calories in than calories out. So eat less. Every meal. Drink water. Cook because then you control what goes in your food. And get exercise every day.

See you in the pool!

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Chris Alexander

exercise for weight loss / water fitness

The Benefits of Water Exercise for Your Heart

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heart rate Water exercise has many benefits, some of which were highlighted in my last Blog post. In this post I would like to focus on the benefits for your heart.

Your heart is a muscle, the most important muscle in your body. It beats 24 hours a day, 7 days a weak. Inactivity will cripple your heart! A normal resting heart rate ranges from 60-80 beats per minute. If you want to make your heart stronger, then you need to make it beat faster, which means you need to do aerobic exercise. Aerobic exercise brings the resting heart rate down. If you can lower your resting heart rate by as little as 10 beats per minute, you will be saving your heart approximately 14,400 beats in a 24-hour period.

Any aerobic exercise done on land or in the water can lower the resting heart rate. But exercising in the water has additional benefits for the heart. Just getting in the pool lowers blood pressure for most people. Blood pressure decreases because immersion relaxes the blood vessels so that they can carry more blood while presenting less resistance to the heart, which is pumping that blood. Decreased blood pressure lingers for a while after you get out of the pool. With regular aquatic exercise, the vessels themselves become more pliant and supple.

This occurs not only with healthy individuals. People with metabolic syndrome, who have a combination of cardiovascular disease risk factors, such as obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol and high triglycerides, also tend to have stiffer blood vessels. The blood vessels become less effective in contracting and relaxing over time. In a study of 12 individuals with metabolic syndrome who participated in a deep-water exercise training program one hour a day, 3 days a week, blood vessel health improved in just 8 weeks. Obese individuals will often be more comfortable exercising in water because the buoyancy of the water supports their weight, and therefore they are more likely to continue with the program.

Blood pressure increases gradually and progressively with increasing age, resulting in a high prevalence of hypertension among older adults. Hypertension affects 3 out of 4 Americans over the age of 65. Hypertension can lead to heart attack, stroke, and other cardiovascular diseases. It is well known that land-based aerobic exercise can reduce blood pressure in patients with hypertension. A recent study confirmed that swimming at a mild to moderate intensity 3 times a week produced a clinically meaningful reduction in blood pressure in 2-3 months. This is because repeated workouts in the pool reduces stiffening of the blood vessels which is a primary factor that causes blood pressure to increase with age.

The hydrostatic pressure of the water pushes blood out to the extremities, and in combination with more supple blood vessels, stroke volume and cardiac output increases. This means that the heart becomes more efficient, pumping more blood with each stroke. Blood flow to the muscles during water exercise can increase an amazing 250%. Blood flow to the brain also increases, delivering more oxygen and nutrients to the brain cells. With this kind of blood flow, heart rate is lowered. Target heart rates while exercising in shallow water average about 7 beats per minute lower than the same intensity exercise on land. Target heart rates in deep water, where more of the body experiences the hydrostatic pressure of the water, average about 17 beats per minute lower than the same intensity exercise on land. The exact number of beats per minute depends on many factors, including the fitness level of the individual.

If you have chest pains while working out in the pool you need to stay in the water because the heart rate will go up when you exit the pool. Instead, alert the lifeguard so that he or she can assist you and initiate the emergency action plan if necessary.

Working out in the water has many benefits. The benefits for the heart include making the heart stronger, decreasing the resting heart rate, making blood vessels more supple, reducing blood pressure, and increasing stroke volume. If you would like to see summaries of the research on the benefits of water exercise on the heart or on any of the other benefits of immersion and water exercise, go to www.playcore.com/WaterImmersionWorks.html

See you in the pool!

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Chris Alexander

Benefits of water fitness / water fitness

Benefits of Water Exercise

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This is not the first time I have promoted the benefits of water exercise! But research is ongoing and the list of benefits is getting longer. Two organizations, the National Swimming Pool Foundation and Playcore, created a resource called Water Immersion Works in 2015. The document contains a series of research vignettes written by medical doctors and PhD’s who are studying the benefits of immersion.

Each contributing scholar discusses one benefit of water exercise. Their research concludes that water exercise:

  • Relaxes the blood vessels so they can carry more blood while presenting less resistance to the heart pumping the blood. With regular aquatic exercise, the vessels remain pliant.
  • Improves blood flow to the brain, which may preserve brain function for many years into the future.
  • Provides biological benefits for individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder.
  • Increases energy expenditure, which lowers all causes of mortality risk.
  • Strengthens low back muscles and reduces pain better than similar land-based therapy.
  • Promotes balance and fall prevention.
  • Is effective in improving physical fitness and body composition.
  • Offers impressive rates of energy expenditure and caloric burn.
  • Has an effect on attenuating bone resorption and enhancing bone formation.
  • Offers a lower weight-bearing option for performing high intensity interval training.
  • Is recommended for obese individuals who find water a desirable environment for increased physical activity.
  • Reduces blood pressure for patients with hypertension.
  • Reduces joint stress while improving vascular functioning for individuals with arthritis.

The research continues to evolve and further document the plentiful benefits of water immersion. If you are reading this Blog, you are already involved in water fitness. It is our job to promote these benefits to others. We also need to support the building and maintaining of public swimming pools with our votes and our tax dollars, because doing so promotes our nation’s health.

Aquatic equipment

If you would a copy of the Water Immersion Works document, go to www.playcore.com/WaterImmersionWorks.html 

If you would like to sign up for one of my water fitness classes, check out my schedule on my website at www.waterfitnesslessons.com

See you in the Pool!

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Chris Alexander

Benefits of water fitness / water fitness