Swimming and other water workouts provide an easy way to meet fitness goals while being gentle on joints, while simultaneously increasing strength, flexibility, and endurance.
Water’s buoyancy helps minimize joint impact, making swimming an excellent option for people suffering from arthritis or other joint conditions. Plus, swimming helps burn calories while simultaneously supporting bone health.
Walking or Jogging
Low-impact exercises such as water workouts are an ideal way to burn calories, strengthen muscles, and boost heart health without placing strain on joints. With no direct impact, these low-impact workouts provide safe exercise options that are ideal for all — including those recovering from injury, expecting women or those just beginning an exercise regimen.
Walking or jogging in water provides an effective workout for legs and hips, as well as toning stomach, arms, and shoulders through oppositional muscular action such as flexing and relaxing muscles against resistance provided by water resistance. Furthermore, this form of exercise provides relief for arthritis sufferers as it helps improve joint flexibility and other musculoskeletal issues.
Starting by walking or jogging for 10-20 steps forward and backward, increase your speed as your strength improves, then add resistance by swinging your arms across the pool.
Performing water exercises is gentle on joints and provides an effective low-impact cardio workout, suitable for beginners or those just beginning their fitness journey, according to Cat Kom, founder and CEO of Studio Sweat onDemand. She cautions that walk or jogging in a pool should be kept slow and steady to avoid injury.
Cycling can be an excellent low-impact solution to add exercise into your everyday routine, whether that means riding to work or shopping trips – either way it provides an effortless and affordable way of burning off calories while simultaneously improving heart health.
Make time for Tai Chi, an engaging low-impact activity which has been proven to ward off depression, dementia and sleep disorders. Don’t forget kayaking: an enjoyable stress-free way of enjoying nature while getting exercise!
The Texas A&M Research Laboratory has discovered that water jogging and walking, combined, are more efficient at burning calories than running on land. This is because the denser water forces the body to expend additional energy when moving the same distance on dry land compared to submersion in water jogging/walking combo. This discovery offers dieters looking for non-stressful ways to lose weight quickly.
Flutter Kick
Flutter kicks are an effective low-impact water workout that can help you burn calories and improve cardiovascular fitness, all while working your legs, arms, and core. Flutter kicks are particularly useful for seniors looking to shed extra weight or improve overall health.
Aerobics classes often incorporate chair yoga as an effective means of strengthening and toning lower-body muscles, offering an alternative to leg raises that may strain lower backs and result in injuries when performed incorrectly.
Start by lying on your back with feet together, extended forward at a 45-degree angle. While keeping arms straight with palms facing floor and head off of ground slightly off center, raise and lower one leg then switch legs until eight to 10 sets are completed.
If you are having difficulty beginning, try using a pool noodle or kickboard to keep your head above water and keep in an horizontal position, enabling a proper flutter kick. This may help get things underway more quickly and smoothly.
Once you feel confident with the flutter kick, try moving through water without equipment to practice before diving in to an actual pool. This gives you time to practice before making the plunge!
No matter your level, mastering the flutter kick is an integral skill to improving stroke efficiency and increasing stability in water. Furthermore, practicing this movement regularly will strengthen balance in your aquatic surroundings and make you a stronger swimmer overall.
Start flutter kicking by pushing off of the wall with your legs. When you emerge into the water, straighten your body until it is horizontal; raise both arms above your head with one on top of another; and initiate your kick.
The flutter kick is an effective exercise designed to burn abdominal fat while simultaneously developing a strong core and increasing stamina and endurance. By performing it regularly, this movement targets all your ab muscles – such as your rectus abdominals and hip flexors – while simultaneously working your obliques which helps your maintain body positioning in water and make you more efficient.
Kickboard Swimming
Kickboard Swimming is an efficient full body workout that focuses on strengthening legs and working the core, while honing kicking technique while increasing cardiovascular fitness.
Water workouts for low-impact exercise are an effective way to build strength and stamina, as well as an ideal choice for people unable to participate in other forms of cardio exercise. Water exercises also offer stress reduction benefits while supporting overall healthy lifestyle practices.
Swimming, the only form of aerobic activity that requires breathing underwater, can be exhausting. To maximize your workout’s potential and ensure optimal performance, it is crucial that you learn to breathe properly when swimming and alternate breath patterns while training underwater. To gain maximum benefit from your swim workout session.
Use of a kickboard can increase the intensity and challenge of swimming exercise, as well as help you focus on proper breathing technique while in the water. This is particularly useful if you’re new to the sport and wish to develop good breathing techniques while underwater.
With a kickboard, you can perform various aquatic exercises – push-ups, arm circles and tricep dips are among them! Furthermore, use this board to work on your flutter kick or breaststroke kick techniques!
Step into either rib- or waist-deep water and grasp both ends of a kickboard with your thumbs on top. Hinge forward from hips 45 degrees while keeping back flat and elbows bent by sides so the kickboard is in front of your chest. Extend arms and squeeze abs as you quickly press diagonally downward in water before scooping it back up like a bicep curl.
Bending your elbows when sitting on the board helps isolate oblique muscles that are essential for breaststroke and butterfly kicking, as well as build stronger backstroke flutter kicks while stimulating muscle growth.
Beginners should seek guidance from a professional coach regarding how to safely use a kickboard, as they will also inform of any associated injury risks.
Water Curls
Water workouts provide low-impact exercise for people with arthritis or joint pain. Plus, water exercises burn calories while increasing heart rate – helping people lose weight and become fitter overall.
Water arm curls, which work your biceps and triceps, are among the best arm exercises you can do in shallow pools to strengthen and tone them. Arm curls provide an effective warm-up before more strenuous workouts such as running or jogging.
Start by standing on the edge of a pool with feet together and toes pointed outward, leaning back slightly for balance, feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart and keeping legs in a “V” formation while keeping them straight at all times.
Repeat for 10-20 reps before slowly lowering back down into starting position on both sides. Do this until 15-20 repetitions have been completed on each side.
Add extra resistance to this exercise by using foam dumbbells or stacking multiple sets. For an even more challenging workout, perform it while sitting on a pool ledge for extra support for your upper body.
Daly advises doing this water exercise twice every week for optimal conditioning; however, you may do it daily as long as there is rest between sets.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that exercise in water can be especially helpful for those living with arthritis and osteoarthritis, providing low-impact strength training that can soothe painful joints while also increasing flexibility and decreasing back pain.
Be mindful that when performing water exercises, never work through pain. Prior to commencing any physical therapy-led aquatic exercise sessions, always consult a qualified physical therapist first.
Walking or jogging in waist- to chest-high water is another popular low-impact exercise in water, ideal for people living with arthritis and other chronic conditions who find deep water difficult. Seek advice from your physical therapist as to which depth is right for you; add ankle or wrist weights for added resistance as you go along your workout.