If you are lucky enough to have access to an outdoor swimming pool this summer, are you using it to its full advantage?
Most people in the Northeast have a very short window of back yard swimming pool use, roughly from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Most outdoor public pools in our area close for the season in early September when the kids are back in school. During the summer months, people will cool off in the pool and bounce around with friends and family, but the vast majority of pool owners or outdoor pool users have no formal exercise plan to maximize their pool use despite the financial investment in a pool club membership or swimming pool installation.
Aquatic exercise is helpful to the human body. The reduction in weight bearing on ankles, knees, hips and the spine caused by the buoyancy of water makes exercise safe and comfortable, even for those with significant arthritis and joint pain. Standing in waist deep water reduces the weight bearing load by approximately 50%, while chest deep water reduces the load by 75%, and chin deep water reduces the load by roughly 90%. Being in deep water completely unweights your joints for 100% reduction in weight bearing force. Therefore, you can walk, jog and jump in the pool to achieve a great cardiovascular workout without the associated discomfort frequently experienced after high impact exercise on land.
Additionally, the hydrostatic pressure of water does some amazing things for your body. By applying compression to your blood vessels, there is a reduction in swelling in your feet, ankles and legs, and an increase in blood flow returning to the heart which results in reduced blood pressure at rest, and a reduced heart rate with exercise. After a long day of standing on your feet, its no wonder that people want to cool off and just stand in the pool—it feels amazing on your tired feet and legs. But what happens if you do more than stand, and purposefully move in the water? You build significant strength, balance and endurance!
The viscosity of water is much greater than the viscosity of air, so moving your extremities through the water requires more effort. Because buoyancy reduces the impact of gravity on movement, lifting your arm straight out in front of you then lowering your arm back to your side is work both in the upward movement and downward motion because the affects of gravity are minimized. That means you are getting balanced exercise in the pool unlike on land where gravity makes one movement harder, and the other easier. So when focusing on strengthening your elbow, instead of working only your biceps, then only your triceps as you would on land with a dumbbell, one set of elbow bends and straightening works the biceps and triceps at the same time, making pool exercise much more time efficient. Because the body is arranged in muscle pairs to move the joints, this concept of muscle balance allows for comprehensive muscle strengthening throughout the body simply by moving your extremities through the water.
Another benefit to aquatic exercise is that little to no equipment is needed to add resistance to exercise in the pool. Unlike on land, where you need to add heavier bands or weights to increase the intensity of your work-out, simply moving your arm or leg fully extended versus bent biomechanically increases the length of the lever arm, making the exercise more challenging. Similarly, slicing your hand through the water is easier than performing the same exercise while positioning your hand flat like a paddle due to the natural resistance of the water. While there are numerous pool exercise equipment offerings, I have recommended many backyard pool owners to simply clean and save their plastic jugs. For example, a quart-sized plastic milk carton, a half-gallon sized lemonade jug and a gallon-sized water jug provide inexpensive and effective weights of varying resistance to use in the pool. Another inexpensive tool I recommend is the pool noodle. Used to off-load joints for floating exercise, to stand on for dynamic balance training or for resistance to movement, it’s hard to beat the cost-effectiveness of the ever-popular pool noodle!
What are some simple and effective exercises you can add to your summer pool use schedule? I always recommend water walking as a safe and effective warm-up. “Walking like Bigfoot” with an exaggerated step length and arm swing is a terrific total body exercise. Backwards walking is also important as it targets the posterior chain of muscles that we tend to under-use in our sedentary lifestyles. Side-stepping, making sure to lead with both the right then the left legs, strengthens and stretches your hips in both directions to ensure muscular balance. Ten minutes of water walking in all four positions as a warm-up, or water walking forwards, backwards, and side-stepping to the right, then side-stepping to the left for thirty minutes, is a safe and simple exercise regime for even novice exercisers or weak swimmers.
Flexing and extending your shoulders, elbows, hips and knees, with or without resistance from empty plastic jugs, foam dumbbells or a pool noodle, is a way to tone and strengthen most of your major muscle groups in a short period of time. If you are a strong swimmer, treading water in the deep end of the pool or supported by a pool noodle is an effective and time efficient way to increase your cardiovascular endurance with a minimal time commitment. Start slowly then gradually build up your water treading duration from 2 to 3 minutes initially to 10 or 15 minutes as you become more fit.
Remember the importance of warming up in the pool, as the water temperature is cooler than your body temperature, and your body will lose heat without proper body movement, putting you at risk of muscle strains or ligamentous sprains, particularly if the water temperature is below 78 degrees Fahrenheit. The Aquatic Exercise Association, AEA, recommends pool temperatures of 83 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit for moderate to vigorous exercise, although temperatures in a rehabilitative or therapeutic pool of warmer water up to 90 degrees are often helpful for stretching. AEA guidelines for lap swimming allow for cooler water temperatures but 76 to 77 degrees Fahrenheit is considered borderline too cold for swimming due to the heightened risk of injury from exercising in cold water as the body sends blood to the core to protect vital organs, leaving the extremities with less blood flow.
In closing, if you have access to a pool, put it to good use! Get in the water, and move around to reap the many health benefits from submersion in an aquatic environment. Be sure to listen to your body, and rest when necessary, drink plenty of water to prevent dehydration in the heat of summer, and have fun! Join a group exercise class or hire a private aquatics instructor for more movement ideas to safely use in the pool for an exercise modality this summer!
Carrie Burger, DPT, is a physical therapist, certified yoga instructor, aquatic exercise instructor and a mindfulness meditation instructor. She enjoys working with people to relieve pain through movement and mindfulness practices. She is the proprietor of Carried Away Physical Therapy and Yoga, in Schwenksville, PA. Follow Carrie at xxxxxxxxxx
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