Let’s agree that many of us love splashing in a pool for fun, if not for workouts. And swimming is undoubtedly one of the favorite exercises among fitness enthusiasts for its immense health benefits.
Water always serves as a ‘best tool’ when it comes to workouts, as it offers full resistance to the body sans gravity, offering great fitness levels. Besides swimming, water exercises or aqua sports have become popular in recent years. Aqua-based workout routines offer immense benefits for sculpting your muscles, getting your heart rate going and improving your overall physical condition. Moreover, due to its inherent buoyancy, water exercises help in losing weight and significantly reduce your chances of getting injured.
Water activities can help you burn calories faster, improve your agility and the benefits of swimming are well-known. And what’s more, you don’t have to be a seasoned swimmer to take up these activities. There are beginner, intermediate and advanced sports levels available, choose an activity that works out for you.
Water Exercises To Boost Fitness And Stamina:
Water Aerobics
Water aerobics are done as a group. It comprises simple and steady hand and leg movements, done waist-deep in water, grooving to the peppy music that helps in boosting metabolism and improving the levels of energy. Some popular forms are aqua Zumba and water yoga.
Lap Swimming
Lap swimming is quite a common practice. One lap consists of going down the pool (25 meters long) and coming back from where you started, covering a total distance of 50 meters. Swimming for merely five to seven laps a day can help you lose belly weight particularly around your waist, improves lung function and builds your endurance levels. Some routine swim strokes are freestyle, backstroke and butterfly.
Aqua Jogging
This type of routine is usually organized in a scheduled class, where a group of people wear a flotation device and run till the deep end of the pool, in brisk and steady motions. Aqua jogging is very beneficial for those recovering from an injury or having mild joint pain conditions, to improve flexibility and range of movement.
Water Polo
Although this is a rigorous Olympic sport, you can always motivate your family members to join you for a friendly pool game. Each team can have three members, and one goalkeeper and the objective is to pass the ball skillfully and score a goal on the opposite side of the pool. This improves your hand-eye coordination and also provides resistance against the force of the water, thereby strengthening your physique.
Underwater Navigation
This technique only sounds complex but is, in fact, a very basic breathing exercise and consists of holding your breath, with your body fully under the water and moving forward with gentle kicks and wide sweeping strokes of the arms. This is extremely useful for augmenting cardiovascular health and strengthening core muscles in your shoulders, arms and legs.
Ably Supports Heart Functions
Swimming and aqua sports such as water polo confer excellent health benefits not only for uplifted physical fitness but also for augmented heart health. The water flowing across the pool is maintained at a certain pressure and while moving across this stream, it helps stimulate blood circulation to all parts of the body. In this manner, instances of high blood pressure, damage to blood vessels are averted and the heart muscles do not endure any undue strain, thereby becoming stronger and pumping blood at a normal pace.
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