Water workouts provide a low-impact cardiovascular workout with lasting benefits to muscles and flexibility.
Buoyancy creates an uplifting force in water that lessens or eliminates impact to feet, ankles, knees and hips – ideal for people suffering from joint issues or injuries. These workouts may even help with bone development!
Biceps Curls
Bicep curls are an age-old move to help develop larger and more visible biceps. “With some adjustments,” states NASM-certified personal trainer Keri Harvey, this exercise can also work other upper body muscles. Furthermore, as an isolated movement it is an ideal choice for targeting short head and brachioradialis of the biceps.
Correct execution of biceps curls can provide important benefits to core and shoulder stability, however leaning back too far during their performance may compromise their ability to isolate biceps muscles while placing too much stress on your lower back.
To avoid unnecessary stresses, perform biceps curls while sitting on a bench, with your hands placed directly in front of you so as to reduce swinging as you lift and lower a dumbbell. Alternatively, a light bar allows for this same exercise on the floor.
Rusin advises against doing too many repetitions with your biceps training, since your arms were never intended to curl ever-increasing loads and you may put your elbow joint at risk of injury.
Rusin recommends adding the hammer curl as another great variation to target biceps brachii in an alternate manner. Holding dumbbells palms-forward requires you to move into unfamiliar directions that stimulate and challenge muscles not used to being worked and also helps strengthen forearm muscles while building overall arm strength.
Hand Flutters
Water movement supports your joints while offering resistance, helping you burn calories and build muscles more efficiently. Low impact exercises are great if you’re just getting into exercise or have sore joints; they’re also beneficial if recovering from injuries or engaging in high impact workouts requires taking it easy on recovery days.
Fitness instructor Tiffany Rothe’s 10-minute lower-impact butt sculpting routine offers an ideal way to tone abs and butts with minimal joint stress. You’ll move both arms and legs while rotating your torso, with this lively video being great for beginners looking to break into fitness without overstraining their joints.
Swimming is an excellent low-impact exercise that also serves as resistance training. A study published in 2017 in Osteoarthritis and Cartilage demonstrated this fact by showing how women who participated in four-month aquatic resistance training programs lost weight, reduced knee pain and increased their walking speed.
This sculpting routine starts by standing up straight with your shoulders back and chest lifted, engaging your core muscles, lifting one leg into a flutter motion for 10 seconds before switching legs and repeating this set of 10. When floating slowly through this routine don’t cling to handrails of either your pool or treadmill; they could hinder proper form and prevent you from reaping all its benefits.
Lateral Arm Raise
Lateral raises are an effective shoulder exercise to target the middle deltoids, essential for widening and defining your shoulders. They also help stabilize your shoulder joint – the least stable joint in your body! Performing light-weight lateral raises allows you to meet your rep goals without overstraining your shoulders or risking injury.
Start by standing with feet hip and shoulder width apart while holding two dumbbells in a neutral grip in front of you with palms facing your body in a neutral grip, palms facing in. Make sure your core remains tight while not leaning forward as this takes tension off of your deltoids and encourages bad form. Raise arms straight out until they reach parallel with your torso before slowly lowering back down until starting position again for desired reps. Repeat as desired!
Cable lateral raises are another effective way of targeting similar muscles with different motion. Just attach the cable attachment at its lowest pulley level, hold onto one handle across your chest with one hand, and lift your arm diagonally forward while keeping a firm hold of it just above your chest.
Use of this variation adds extra tension to the lateral deltoid muscle as your arm extends further than normal lateral raises, and cables allow better control of motion – giving your muscles time under tension and helping them expand over time. Switch between variations for optimal shoulder fitness!
Jumping Legs
Jumping is an ideal exercise to target the legs, glutes, core, and arms for balance. Box jumps are an effective plyometric exercise that can increase leg strength and power as well as increase endurance; however, they may place undue strain on beginners or those with weak or injured knees; there are lower impact alternatives which provide comparable results without straining knees as much.
Replace jumping with squat thrusts as an alternative exercise method. Stand with weights in both hands at hip-width apart and lunge into position with left foot back with most of your weight in right leg; inhale to hinge forward at hips while keeping spine tall while exhaling to drive upwards and squeeze glutes at top; lower and repeat.
Running stairs can help strengthen both leg muscles and your core, with running stairs being much less demanding on your joints than jumping on a box. Running stair also makes for an easy workout with no set location needed; running it anywhere also eases on the knees compared to jumping! For a fun alternative, consider jumping in the water together or attending water aerobics class; just remember not to do too intense of an workout too close to bedtime as intense exercises could trigger restless leg syndrome symptoms that disrupt sleep!
Water Walking
Water walking is an excellent way to improve stamina, posture and heart rate without impact. Additionally, this exercise strengthens lower body muscles while toning arms. Although anyone can give this sport a try, increasing speed or marching in place for longer can add intensity – buoyancy barbells, foam dumbbells or resistance gloves may further challenge this workout!
Water’s natural resistance provides a fantastic workout option for people suffering from knee or back pain, or recovering from injuries. Water workouts also make great rehabilitation exercises while not compromising quality exercise – many athletes utilize water workouts while recovering.
Water walking can take many forms. At its core, you simply walk across a pool. However, side-to-side or up and down walking are also options that provide exercise benefits. To increase challenge further, raise legs above water’s surface when moving or reverse your walking pattern while moving or use hand webs to grab onto pool floors to pull yourself forward more rapidly. Jog in water before slowing to walking pace for several minutes of interval training.
Water Jogging
Running is one of the most beloved outdoor recreational activities, yet can also be one of the most rigorous physical workouts. Alternating between running and pool laps may help relieve muscle soreness while building endurance without straining joints – or even as part of recovery from an injury or to rehabilitate an overworked joint.
Water jogging is an impact-free way to gain high intensity exercise that can increase cardiovascular fitness while strengthening and toning legs, back, abdominals, and arms. Success lies in proper form – standing in hip or chest-deep water while running and taking care to keep head up while maintaining a good posture while taking short circular strides that focus on knee drive and pumping arms can make this workout worthwhile.
Running against the resistance of water forces your muscles to work harder and increases heart rate while improving endurance. Furthermore, water jogging increases flexibility and lung capacity by helping you move through an increased range of motion without placing undue stress on joints.
As a bonus, water jogging can help you cool off faster by eliminating heat production and sweat production. Water jogging is an ideal workout for runners wanting to improve their running performance or recover from injuries as it can be done almost anywhere and tailored specifically to your needs.