Many people dismiss water exercise without taking into account the potential benefits it has to offer. The truth is, anyone interested in increasing their personal fitness levels, conditioning their body, boosting heart health, or looking for powerfully effective, low-impact methods of working out, may find water exercises are the most effective in achieving their goals.
How Are Water Exercises Beneficial?
Bucknell University discusses the benefits of water exercises as they pertain to three distinct areas of human health:
Physical Benefits
The physical benefits are noteworthy; water exercises help to increase circulation, improve flexibility, build strength and endurance, rehabilitate muscles and build better balance. They can even be instrumental in helping to control and maintain healthy weight.
Social Benefits
On a social level, many water exercise classes involve other people, making it safe and fun and more enjoyable. Don’t discount the fun factor as a motivator for staying on track, nor the social aspect of water exercise classes for helping people set and achieve their workout goals.
Psychological Benefits
In addition to helping participants develop a positive attitude about exercise, water exercises also help people enjoy renewed energy, less tension and stress, and learn the importance of patience.
The CDC also associates water-based exercise with helping people with chronic diseases such as arthritis avoid worsening symptoms while simultaneously improving the use of affected joints.
Who Benefits from Water Based Exercises?
While most people view water-based exercise as an activity set aside for older adults, the truth is that people of all ages can enjoy the many benefits this type of exercise has to offer – especially people who are overweight, recovering from injuries or accidents, experience limited mobility or are interested in fine-tuning their body’s performance.
The Cleveland Clinic explains that buoyancy can lighten the weight of the human body by as much as 90 percent for those in water up to the neck level. This means that people who experience pain when exercising on land are less likely to do so when exercising in the water, making it an excellent choice for anyone recovering from chronic or painful musculoskeletal conditions.
The other major benefit of exercising in water is the resistance it delivers. In fact, resistance in water varies between 4 and 42 times greater than resistance in the air. According to the speed of the movements, water exercise can be instrumental in helping to strengthen and tone major muscle groups.
Regardless of the types of exercise you wish to explore in the water, you stand to gain a multitude of health benefits from these activities.