Whether you know it or not, there are hundreds of water exercises that can help you lose weight, build a stronger body frame, and live healthier for the rest of your life. Water is not only good for life, it is good for the body too and health experts say water is one of the best fitness tools there is.
Water exercises or aquatic workouts are great because water provide you with the aquatic resistance needed to build muscles and body mass; and since water bears some of your weight when you are inside a pool, it goes to reason that it reduces the likelihood of injury if you’re obese or overweight.
Water exercises help you to burn calories and to blast fat, and it gives you the body tone you have always wanted without endangering your health or health goals in the process. Here then are some of the water exercises you can do for optimum health:
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- Water ab bicycle: This exercise is done by carrying out a bicycle-riding motion inside a pool of water. You float away as you paddle your legs as if riding a bicycle to strengthen your legs and ab in the most excellent way.
- Double leg lift: This exercise requires you to sit still and lean back in the water with your back to the edge of the pool. You then lower and raise up both legs as high as you can carry them in front of you – close together. The water makes you buoyant and this is where the work of exercising is.
- Suspended jump: By this, you stand up in the pool with the water up to your chest. Then you try to jump up as high as you possibly can, and when you come down back in the water you shouldn’t allow your feet to land at the bottom of the pool before you jump up as high as you can again. Do this repeatedly and you’d be glad for the exercise.
- Flutter kick: With this method, you hold on to the edge of the pool with both hands and then stretch further back as if lying suspended on your belly. You then splash both legs up and then as fast as you can underwater like a paddleboard.
- Otter roll: This you can do with a beach ball held against your chest. Holding the beach ball to your chest, lie down flat and face down in the water and then try to roll round and round with the ball held firmly with both hands. Ensure you don’t inhale water and be sure to reverse your water roll to the opposite direction once you get used to one way.
- Front raises: Holding a pool weight or kettlebells inside the pool, you stand firm on the feet and then try to raise the weight to chest level right inside the water. The resistance of the water and the weight of the object will build your biceps and strengthen your arms and shoulders.
- Scissors kick: Lying on your back in the pool with your arms resting at its edge, you then bring both legs together in a crossed fashion by bringing one leg atop another and vice-versa. Increase the speed and you’ll feel your thighs getting heavier as the muscles start to respond to the resistance of the water and the speed of your leg movements.
There are countless other aquatic exercises you can do, and you can learn about all of them by simply visiting Shape to see the pictures and descriptions of these water exercises that promote personal health and general wellbeing.