Behold the holy grail of deep-water fitness! If you teach deep-water classes, the latest video, Seamless Deep, is a jackpot of movement ideas. USA Aqua Expert, Jack Lebeau shares 100 deep-water moves that can be taught for 30-seconds each for a seamless 50-minute workout, or cherry-pick your favorite moves and give your deep class a total makeover.
Only teach shallow? Watch and learn some new ideas for unleashing some exciting suspended animation in your shallow-water classes. Suspended moves are considered water-specific, which means you can’t do them in a studio and you can’t do them in your living room. Providing water-specific challenges makes your shallow-water aqua classes more unique and challenging. Additionally, watch the first installment of Jackie’s Seamless series – Seamless Shallow, which features 100 shallow-water moves.
SEAMLESS INSPIRATION? As described in the featured blog for Seamless Shallow and in the video interview with Jackie, the idea for Seamless Deep was conceived in August of 2014 as Jackie was recovering from some extensive eye surgery. Unable to read or watch TV, Jackie was relegated to listening to playlists on her iPod. “I started performing exercises in my head and thought how cool it would be to create a class of 100 moves that focused on transitioning one move right into the next, “ recalls Jackie. Once recovered, Jackie set to work on creating her epic deep-water adventure. Seamless Deep was debuted at the International Aquatic Fitness Conference (IAFC) in 2015.
PROGRAMMING SUGGESTIONS According to Jackie, 100 moves is a heck of a lot of moves to squeeze into one class. If you want to teach the class as it was performed in the video you would teach each move for 30 seconds or two 32-count phrases of music. That would be 50-minutes, leaving you barely enough time to include a warm-up, water breaks and a cool down in a 60-minute class. If you teach a 45-minute class, you would need to obviously make some changes. “I rarely teach my participants the Seamless list of 100 moves; instead I break up the sequence into smaller chunks,” says Jackie. She likes to teach these smaller chunks of deep-water choreography paired up with jogging laps and HIIT drills. According to Jackie, the chunks that work well as stand-alone choreography are the right and left specific sequence (moves 6-12 and moves 17-23), the 1-legged sequence (moves 71-75 and 86-90), or the long abdominal sequence from moves 46-61. The full list of 100 Moves is included with the video.
EQUIPMENT No hand-held equipment is used in this workout. Obviously a flotation belt is required to provide the body with neutral buoyancy so that the arms and legs can be freed up to execute the choreography. Webbed gloves are ideal in deep-water workouts as they provide more powerful propulsion of the arm movements, which can help a sinker remain more buoyant.
PROPS & NOTES A chair or stool is a must when leading a deep-water workout from the deck. Seamless Deep is well worth watching simply to observe Jackie’s adroit deck teaching skills. Another ‘must have’ is notes. It is impossible to memorize 100 moves. In the video, Jackie discusses and shows the laminated flipbook she uses when teaching the some or all of the 100 moves.
MOVE #16 It wasn’t until we were editing that we discovered that Move #16 got left out. Move #16 is the Half Pipe Jog. According to Jackie, to cue this move, ask your class to imagine running sideways to the right and to the left, as if running inside a tunnel or half pipe. Their body should be squared forward towards you, core muscles braced, and jogging from vertical to horizontal and alternating left and right sides.
KUDOS! Fitmotivation extends a big THANK YOU to Jackie Lebeau sharing Seamless Deep. Subscribers who teach deep-water classes are going to be thrilled at this new addition. I noticed that the deep-water category on the site gets searched more than any other category. And that is a clear indication that I need to make greater efforts to get more deep-water videos produced. But again, those who only teach shallow-water classes can take away really fun and really challenging suspended movement ideas for their classes from the Seamless Deep routine. Be sure to check out Jackie’s other two videos – Seamless Shallow and Kickboard Circuits. Interested in hosting CEC workshops with Jackie? Visit her website - JLA Fitness - for details and contact information. And stay tuned! Next month Jackie shares one of her favorite warm-water routines – Aqua Zen Flow.