"Let The Water Do The Work, Young Man"

Ever since I spoke with Roy (see more in an earlier Resource entry), I have increased my time in the pool. Water workouts provide great resistance, don’t negatively impact my joints, and the water furnishes enough density to assist me with my balance and mobility.  When I’m in the pool, I can move around like a kid, and it provides an environment where I can “check-out” of reality.  It’s very peaceful and refreshing.

Since I want to increase my flexibility and range of motion (and not training for a race of any kind), the time per exercise is relatively short but it does the job and keeps the overall workout time manageable so I can get on with my day.  Here is a brief rundown of what I’m currently doing for my water workouts:

Walk the line

Jump into the water and walk the black line on the bottom of the pool.  When the water gets up to my shoulders, I simply turn around and walk back to where I started.  I concentrate on swinging/pumping my arms and taking long strides.  5 minutes.

Walk the line sideways

I am doing the same thing, except I’m moving left to right and right to left instead of walking straight forward.  In other words, I am facing one direction and moving side to side concentrating on balance and increasing my stride length.  5 minutes in each direction.

Run in place/high knees

I find a place in the pool where the water is shoulder high and give it my best Olympic sprinter imitation.  Exaggerate the swinging of my arms and focus on lifting each knee as high as possible and pushing down until my foot touches the bottom of the pool.  This is currently the main exercise of my pool workouts, and it provides a great range of motion and cardio workout.  Plus, it works my upper body since my arms are moving, and the water provides resistance.  5+ minutes.

Swim

Pick my favorite stroke and get after it.  I swim freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, or whatever gets me from one end of the pool to the other and try to be as smooth as possible and not fight the water.  Smooth is fast.  5+ minutes.

Leg kick

Grab hold of the side of the pool and kick.  To change things up, I’ll rotate my body position from one side to the other and scissor-kick.  This increases leg strength, flexibility, and is a great cool-down from the workout.  5 minutes.

Roy told me his favorite thing to do is sit in the whirlpool after his pool workout, and I completely agree with him.  If you are fortunate enough to have access to a whirlpool, try it for 5 minutes.  The warm, pulsating water feels great.

This water workout seems to help, and I’ll tweak it some depending on how I feel each day.  Sometimes I’ll swim more, sometimes I will walk the line more, and so on.  Try different things and do them for different times to see what works for you.

As Roy told me, “Let the water do the work, young man”.