Category: water fitness

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

Free Choreography #6

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fullsizeoutput_1e58   This is the sixth in a series of Blog posts on choreography. The last post described block choreography, which happens to be my favorite choreography style. I included a sample of simple block choreography, using 6 basic exercises.  The 6 exercises are:

  1. Knee-high jog
  2. Run tires (like running through tires at football practice)
  3. Jumping jacks
  4. Cross-country ski
  5. Kick forward
  6. Heel jog

Now I want to show you how to expand your blocks of choreography to make them more complex.

Use the same 6 exercises as before, adding  4 exercises to the beginning of the set. Change something about the 6 exercises in each succeeding set, but  repeat the 4 new exercises without change. How do you select the 4 exercises? Perhaps you would like to focus on upper body strength. Then you might choose:

  1. Lunge R with bowstring pull L
  2. Lunge L with bowstring pull R
  3. Lunge R with double-arm press-down
  4. Lunge L with lat pull-down

If you want to focus on flexibility, then you might choose some movements in a diagonal pattern:

  1. Jumping jacks cross hands over chest & bring arms down at sides
  2. Jumping jacks cross hands in front of thighs & bring arms out to sides
  3. Jumping jacks & inner thigh lift alternate
  4. Inner thigh lift

If you want to increase intensity, instead of adding 4 new exercises at the beginning, add a set of intervals at the end. Pick one of the 6 exercises and add an intensity variable such as speed, increased range of motion, or power for the work interval and then use the basic move for the recovery. For example:

  1. Work: jog faster 60 seconds
  2. Recovery: knee-high jog 30 seconds
  3. Work: knee lift & lunge R 30 seconds & L 30 seconds
  4. Recovery: Knee-high jog
  5. Work: Squat & jump 60 seconds
  6. Recovery: Knee-high jog 30 seconds

Another option is to insert 3 or 4 more variations of one of the 6 basic exercises in each set. Your first set might look something like this:

  1. Knee-high jog
  2. Knee-lift R, travel R
  3. Knee-lift L, travel L
  4. Jog syncopate
  5. Chorus line kick
  6. Run tires
  7. Jumping jacks
  8. Cross-country ski
  9. Kick forward
  10. Heel jog

For your second set, use your 6 basic moves with different arm movements, but insert 3 or 4 more variations of run tires, such as squat and lift one knee to the side, run tires syncopate, frog jump, and frog jump with a quarter turn. Continue to insert variations of the other basic exercises in each succeeding set.

In this series on choreography I have used 6 basic exercises to illustrate the different choreography styles, but you, of course, are free to choose any exercises you’d like. Writing choreography using these techniques will give you lesson plans that are easy to remember and enjoyable for your participants.

For more examples of block choreography and other choreography styles, see my book, Water Fitness Lesson Plans and Choreography. You can find a link to purchase the book on my website was www.waterfitnesslessons.com

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See you in the pool!

Chris Alexander

 

 

choreography / shallow water / water fitness

Free Choreography #5

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This is the fifth in a series of Blog posts on choreography. Your choreography is your lesson plan. It is helpful to have a lesson plan before you start teaching your class. If you write down your lesson plans, you will eventually end up with your own choreography library that you can refer to as often as you choose. Including a variety of choreography styles in your lesson plan library will set you apart from other instructors who may have a single technique that they tend to repeat over and over again. Your participants will definitely appreciate the variety.

Previous Blog posts featured samples of linear choreography, pyramid choreography, add-on choreography, and the layer technique. This Blog post is about block choreography. Block choreography is my personal favorite because it is so versatile. It can be as simple or as complex as you want. Let’s start out simply, using the same set of 6 basic exercises I used in all the previous choreography samples. The 6 exercises transition easily from one to the next. The exercises are:

  1. Knee-high jog
  2. Run tires (like running through tires at football practice)
  3. Jumping jacks
  4. Cross-country ski
  5. Kick forward
  6. Heel jog

These 6 exercises comprise your first set. In each succeeding set you change something about the exercises. In this example I will change the arm movements, add travel, increase the range of motion, change the impact option, cross the midline of the body and combine two moves.

Change the arm movements:

  1. Knee-high jog with pumping arms
  2. Run tires with shoulder blade squeeze
  3. Jumping jacks clap hands
  4. Cross-country ski with windshield wiper arms
  5. Kick forward with triceps extension
  6. Heel jog with rotator cuff sweep

Add travel:

  1. Knee-high jog travel backward
  2. Run tires travel forward
  3. Jumping jacks travel backward
  4. Cross-country ski travel forward
  5. Kick forward travel backward
  6. Heel jog travel forward

Increase the range of motion:

  1. Leap forward
  2. Leap sideways
  3. Jumping jacks with arms out of the water
  4. Cross-country ski with full range of motion
  5. High kick
  6. Skate kick

Change the impact option:

  1. Bicycle suspended
  2. Frog jump neutral position
  3. Jacks tuck
  4. Tuck ski
  5. Seated kick suspended, emphasize quads
  6. Seated kick suspended, emphasize hamstrings

Cross the mid-line of the body:

  1. Crossover knees
  2. Inner thigh lift
  3. Jacks cross
  4. Cross-country ski with rotation
  5. Crossover kick
  6. Hopscotch

Combine two moves:

  1. In, in, out, out
  2. Ski-jacks combo (ski, ski, jack, together)
  3. One leg kicks forward & back

You can probably think of more ways to vary these 6 exercises on your own. This is simple block choreography. So how do you make it more complex? That will be in my next Blog post!

See you in the pool!

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choreography / shallow water / water fitness