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By Brittany Belsterling
With summer officially here, beat the heat and shake up your healthy living routine with water fitness. Keeping up with your exercise routine during the summer can be hard, especially as the temperatures rise. But did you know that working out in your pool is as effective as land-based workouts? In fact, water fitness has many health benefits that are ideal for aging bodies compared to traditional land-based exercises.
This summer take the plunge and try Poolfit Workouts, which feature low-impact exercise that builds muscular strength and boosts endurance. Water workouts are fun and can be as challenging as you like. PoolFit founder, Mark Grevelding, a Florida resident, and a longtime aquatic fitness training specialist and personal trainer, wants to dispel the myth that you can’t get a good workout in the water. Mark shares 10 Reasons why you should exercise in the water. Below is a summary of the top benefits.
Why Water Workouts Are Great for Summer
1. It’s Low Impact
Buoyancy is the opposite of gravity and creates an uplifting force in the water that reduces or eliminates impact on feet, ankles, knees and hips. Water fitness is ideal for aging bodies because it provides opportunities to exercise vigorously without pain or joint discomfort. Shallow water exercise is low-impact. Deep water exercise is “zero gravity fitness,” meaning zero impact and zero stress on your body.
If you gave up jogging because it hurts, the good news is that you can sprint as hard and as fast as you want in the water, burning calories without discomfort.
2. Weight Loss
Water fitness allows people to exercise longer and with more intensity, improving cardio fitness, muscular endurance and stamina. An additional benefit is weight loss, which helps people move better and feel better in their daily lives.
Water exercise also allows people to move their limbs more freely in multiple directions without the risk of injury, increasing flexibility and balance. When you exercise in the pool, all movements are performed in the thick, viscous resistance of the water. This total-body resistance is unique to water fitness, making it more effective than land fitness in improving muscular endurance and strength without the use of additional equipment.
Simply put, the water itself is a form of fitness equipment and effectively increases your heart rate, burns calories and drives weight loss.
3. Balanced Muscles & Joints
All movements are resisted in the water and that means muscles on both sides of the joint are targeted. For example, performing arm curls in the water works both the biceps and the triceps, improving muscular balance and joint integrity. Typically, posterior muscle groups atrophy more prominently as we age, leading to joint imbalances and musculoskeletal disorders. Water is the great equalizer.
To help fitness seekers tap into the power of water exercise and its numerous health benefits, Mark Grevelding launched PoolFit, the first and only on-demand water fitness streaming service and water exercise app. With more than a hundred water fitness workout videos led by certified, industry leading aquatic fitness instructors, PoolFit’s water exercise videos offer a wide variety of workouts for every age and fitness level. PoolFit’s fitness videos include workouts for arthritis, muscle conditioning, water jogging, HIIT, aqua yoga, deep water flexibility and more.
To learn more about PoolFit and subscribe for a free month of PoolFit workout videos, please visit www.poolfit.tv.
Mark Grevelding is the founder of PoolFit, the only workout platform that specializes in water fitness and aquatic exercise. He is a training specialist and consultant with the Aquatic Exercise Association (AEA). Mark has been active in the fitness industry for 22 years as a group fitness instructor, personal trainer, international presenter and a continuing education provider for the Athletics and Fitness Association of America (AFAA) and American Council on Exercise (ACE).
