Aqua zumbaAqua Zumba seems like a piece of cake until the music starts. Mastering high kicks in a swimming pool isn’t as easy as it sounds. Neither is a pelvic thrust.
Sure, your body weight feels significantly lighter in water, but the resistance is at least 12 times greater. A fellow classmate in the downtown Chattanooga YMCA aqua Zumba class says it best, “It feels like I have a shadow that weighs a hundred pounds.”
Though another remarks that her knees can’t take the fast-paced, dance-inspired exercise on dry ground, adding “But I can do amazing things with my body in the water.”
Did you know?
According to the Aquatic Exercise Association:The lessened gravity of water helps blood return to the heart from the extremities more efficiently. As the water keeps you cool during a workout, it also reduces how hard the heart must work.Wearing shoes while working out in water is beneficial because it reduces impact to the joints even more, supports the ankle and protects the feet from rough surfaces.Though surrounded by water during an aqua workout, you still need to drink plenty of fresh water to prevent overheating and dehydration.For more information visit aeawave.com.
Sweltering August days make it difficult to stay motivated in our daily workout routines. The sweat we work up just walking from the office to the parking lot should count for something, right? But instead of just surviving the heat, we should turn it to our advantage by diving into a pool for a more refreshing workout.
These days it seems like every type of workout is taking to the water, from running to Zumba to aerobics and even yoga. Perhaps it’s because just about anybody can participate in some form of aqua exercise, including senior citizens, those with arthritis, pregnant women and even people with injuries.
YMCA aqua Zumba instructor and former dancer Brittany Eastridge first got her start in aqua Zumba after being told to stop dancing because of a back injury. Now she teaches five or six classes a week.
“The water opens a whole new world to people,” she says, explaining it enhances muscle endurance because of the resistance as well as flexibility and joint mobility. “The main thing is it’s low impact; it’s better for you when it comes to being easier on the joints,” says Andrew Wheeler, aquatics coordinator at the downtown YMCA. “For instance, a lot of people who run a lot, they can just kind of take a break from the high impact of the road or treadmill with water running.”
You won’t burn quite as many calories with aerobic exercise in water as you would with high-impact aerobic exercise out of the water, but it’s pretty darn close. According to mayoclinic.com, a person might burn 402 calories in one hour of aqua-aerobic exercise versus 533 calories with a high-impact, dry ground workout.
“Each one has its own advantage,” says Wheeler. “You sweat more in the water than you realize.”
And according to Wheeler, who’s been working around swimmers for the past 10 years, water exercise is a total mood booster. “It’s invigorating,” he says. “It helps people out and I have gotten to see over time it change people and make them happier people. Their whole personality changes over a matter of months and I get to watch that. It’s rewarding.”
So jump in a pool, swim some laps, take a slow-motion run underwater or just turn on some tunes and jam-all good options to stay fit and get through one of the hottest months of the summer.