With all of us hunkering down at home and gyms closed for the foreseeable future, taking care of our physical bodies can be tough. Sure, you can dust off those old jazzercise VHS tapes. But you can only “Party-Off the Pounds” with Richard Simmons so many times until it’s bound to get a little repetitive.
At The Great Escape, we have a large selection of fitness equipment to choose from. Everything from treadmills to row machines to home gyms—anything you might need to keep your work-outs varied and your health optimal.
But maybe the room that would be your at-home-gym is preoccupied—it’s presently your kid’s room or maybe your home-office. I might counter that we do offer a treadmill desk. However, if you still need an alternative—why not consider using your pool?
Aquatics, water fitness, or aqua aerobics—whatever you want to call it—using your pool to help you exercise is an amazing way to help maintain your physical health. Plus, it’s fun. Which is something we could all use right now.
Here are just a few ways a dip in the pool might be just the ticket:
1) You can be active while still practicing social distancing.
While it might be tempting to go for a walk around the neighborhood, staying at home as much as possible is in everyone’s best interest right now. Being out and about puts both you and others at risk. So, it might be a good idea to skip the stroll and make a splash instead.
2) It’s low impact.
Knees! You are only born with one pair, so take care of them! Working out in the water softens the stress put on your joints that other, traditional exercises might cause. Using your pool can reduce the risk of fitness-related injury.
3) You can adapt many body-weight exercises to be done in the pool.
Okay, so at this point, maybe you’re on-board with the idea of utilizing your pool to keep you healthy. But what kind of exercises can you do ounce you’re in the water? Many of the routine you would do on land you can do in the water. As an added bonus, the water offers 360 degrees of resistance. Try doing some squats, lunges, or jumping jacks in the pool. You can even use the stairs to add some push-ups to your routine. 5 minutes, and you’re bound to be at least a little breathless.
4) It’s amazing cardio!
We already covered how you can do many body-weight, strength training exercises in the pool, but your pool works double duty for you. Swimming is amazing cardio.
Did you know treading water burns on average 11 calories per minute? Can you think of many other forms of cardio that have that kind of burn?!
Cardio is incredibly essential for your cardio-vascular health. It often gets a bad rap as being boring. But I don’t think anyone would using the word “boring” as an adjective to describe a pool party.
These times are unprecedented. We are being challenged to get creative and find new modalities of living. Make sure you are taking care of yourself both physically and emotionally. So, jump in: move your body and maybe find a smile and some levity while you’re doing it.
