Why water is wonderful for your fitness!

My name is Evin and I've been a water aerobics instructor for 7 years and counting. I also have a bachelor's degree in Physical Education from the University of Maryland (GO TERPS!) and I taught middle school P.E. and Health for 4 years before I decided to take time off to be at home with my two beautiful girls.

Teaching water aerobics is not only my job but my favorite way to stay fit. This blog is for everyone interested in getting in shape in the water, but it is especially geared towards water aerobics instructors. I hope that it will be a resource and a great place to exchange ideas so that all of our classes are challenging and fun.

I've had participants as young as 10 and as old as 90. There have been high school football athletes working out next to novice exercisers- all of them finishing class with sweat on their brow and their hearts racing. So what makes water such a wonderful medium of exercise for people of all fitness levels?

The authors of, Water Workouts: A Guide to Fitness, Training, and Performance Enhancement in the Water1, explained well how water's physical properties make a water workout so effective:

1. Buoyancy. Water's buoyant properties provide an almost weightless effect so that you can exercise with virtually no impact to your joints. A person's weight in water is only 10 percent of his/her weight on land. So, a 150 pound person only weighs 15 pounds in neck-deep water. This means even people who are obese, have joint problems or other physical ailments which limit exercise on land can get a heart-pounding workout in the water.

2. Resistance. Obviously water is a lot denser than air, 700 times more dense to be exact. Each movement in the water is met with that extra resistance. When you lift weights on land you often only work one muscle group. For example, when performing a biceps curl you flex the biceps to lift the forearm and gravity does most the work as you relax your biceps to lower it. However, the constant resistance of the water requires the use of opposing muscle groups for each exercise. Using the same example of a biceps curl, in the water you still flex the biceps to lift the forearm but you then have to flex the triceps to overcome the water resistance in order to lower the arm.

3. Refreshment. Being in the water just feels good, and there's a couple of reasons why. The weight of the water pushing against the body is called hydrostatic pressure. During a water workout hydrostatic pressure both stabilizes muscles and joints as well as creates a messaging effect on the muscles. Also, research studies have found that exercising in the water causes a 10 to 15 percent decrease in heart rate and a 10 percent decrease in blood pressure. This decrease in blood pressure allows a person to go faster and do more than they would be able to on land.

With that in mind, lets get to it! Go out and have a great water workout today!

1 Tarpinian, S. & Awbrey B. J. (1997).  Water Workouts: A Guide to Fitness, Training, and Performance Enhancement in the Water (pp.6-8). New York:  The Lyons Press.