New Research to Prove Health Benefits of Swimming Pools

We from Albertgroup Landscaping wish you all a Happy and Healthy New Year. Is fitness also in the Top Ten List of your New Years Resolutions? Than we have good news for you: In 2013 the National Swimming Pool Foundation (NSPF) will award research grants totaling $117,974 to study the health benefits of swimming and aquatic exercise and to encourage more people to get into the water.

Research to Prove Benefits of Aqua Exercise
While we all know about the health benefits of swimming and water exercise, it is always nice to have proof. “Physicians, therapists, and insurance companies rely on published science when considering options to treat patients. As people age, medical costs increase and mobility and quality of life decreases. We believe we have the magic potion. Our funded research will prove it,” explaines Bill Kent, Chairman of the Foundation’s Grant Review Committee, in a press release of the NSPF.

“The percentage of Americans older than 65 will increase from 12.4% to 19.6% by 2030 according to the U.S. Census data; similar trends are occurring around the world”, the release continues. Many of the research studies funded by NSPF focus therefore on seniors and age-related health-problems, such as osteoarthritis, cognitive, neuromuscular and cardiovascular functional decline and stiffness.

Swimming as Therapy for Age-Related Diseases
The Foundation is certain to be able to proof that aquatic exercise is the ideal therapy for many of those diseases. One example is the study of the Cardiovascular Aging Research Laboratoy at the University of Texas at Austin. 40 osteoarthritis patients will be assigned to twelve weeks of swim training. The study is based on the recommendation of the American College of Rheumatology to include aerobic exercise as part of the treatment for osteoarthritis. But arthritic joint paint disables many middle-aged and older adults from land-based exercise and activities. In the water, the joints do not have to carry any weight, which may prove aqua-exercise as the ideal solution.

Another study, proposed by the Department of Kinesiology, at Indiana University, and the Director of Counsilman Center for the Science of Swimming will compare seniors, who have been involved in regular aquatic exercise (swimming or workout) with an age-and-education-matched control-group. The study wants to show, that regular exercise is associated with enhanced cognitive ability and improved nerve and heart health in senior people.

Your Fountain to Youth
“We will all get older”, summarizes Thomas M. Lachocki, Ph.D. and CEO with the National Swimming Pool Foundation the importance of those studies. “Why not explore to what extent water activity will help us maintain our mobility and minds while we are alive. It is no coincidence that people believed in the ‘fountain of youth’ and not a ‘football field of youth'.”