Cool Workouts for the Swimming Pool

Building your own swimming pool can very much help you to start a healthy workout routine. Have you ever asked yourself, why there is hardly a gym, which does not offer Aqua Gym classes? The reason is simple: Water is a natural fitness tool, providing resistance, which strengthens the muscles without putting weight on your joints.

Water offers natural resistance

This makes water the ideal workout environment for just anybody, and especially people with joint injuries, patients who recover from surgery and people who want to get back into shape. Water also helps to burn calories faster. While the activity itself helps you work off some pounds, your body also has to keep its temperature up. Being immersed with water, we loose our body temperature 25 times faster than on land.

It is pretty safe to say, that you use about 8 calories per minute by simply swimming. Of course, the exact amount depends on your body weight and your speed. Here are some ideas of how you can increase the benefits of working out in your backyard pool.

Working out with little kids

Use your child as extra weight. That’s right. Instead of lifting iron, just lift your little one 20 times up and down with your arms. Another fun exercise is the leg-ride. Hold on to the edge of the pool, your back towards the side, than put your child on your legs and let them ride up and down by lifting and lowering your legs. The more you stretch your legs out, the harder it gets. Use one leg to strengthen the leg muscles, use two legs to strengthen your abs.

Use Noodle for extra resistance

With the help of a noodle you can transfer almost any exercise you would do on land into the water. Wrap the noodle around your back and hold on with your arms, than try to jog. This can even be done in deep water. For a great abs-crunch raise your legs to a 90 degree angle and push them back down again. If this is to hard, try to pull your knees up and push them back down.

Now hold the noodle in your hands in front of your body and slowly push it down. Since the noodle is buoyant you can use it as an extra resistance tool. Depending which part of your arms you want to work out, you can push the noodle, down, sideways or backwards.

 Competitive workouts

Challenge your friends and kids to an underwater run. The deeper the water gets, the more challenging this will be. Push noodles or kickboards from one side of the pool to the other, the bigger the surface the bigger the resistance and the greater the workout. This also can be used as a handicap for swimming races. If you still can beat your six-year old while pushing a horizontal board through the water, you should consider to join your local swim-team.

 Let us know how you are doing! We are also looking forward to hear about your ideas for fun workouts in your backyard pool. Ask Monroe pool builder Jamie Snyder about added features, like hot tubs and spas, to relax after your daily exercise.