Last month I had the honor of teaching a day of workshops in Dallas, TX, courtesy of the Metroplex Association of Aquatic Professionals (MAAP). It was a pleasure to once again spend time with MAAP's currently serving president, Christine Alexander, who just released her second book, Water Fitness Progressions. Looking for lesson plans to advance your shallow & deep water programming for greater results? This is your book!
As I always say in my workshops, "If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got." The golden word for fitness instructors is CHANGE. Change lesson plans. Change formats. Change targeted outcomes. Without change, results cease. Without results, students lose incentive to attend fitness sessions. However, change is easier said than done. Hence the need for training workshops, videos, books, articles and more. The latest training resource for aquatic fitness instructors and personal trainers has arrived.
Water Fitness Progressions by Christine Alexander; published by Human Kinetics (2018)
The book explains how to use periodization in a water fitness class to help participants progress their levels of fitness. Periodization is an annual plan that divides the year into four seasons: Preseason, Transition Season, Peak Fitness Season, and Active Recovery. The book is divided into two sections, one covering shallow water and one covering deep water. Each section includes 12 lesson plans for cardio-respiratory training, and each lesson plan has four versions: steady state cardio, easy intervals, moderate intensity intervals and high intensity intervals. There are also 15 lesson plans for strength training using the properties of water or buoyant, drag or rubberized equipment. At the end of each section are some games and fun activities that can be used during active recovery. The target audience is beginning water fitness instructors who want to learn more about various types of interval training and get information on using aquatic equipment. Experienced water fitness instructors may wish to adopt periodization as a training tool. And aquatic personal trainers may find some of these ideas helpful with their clients.
WHERE TO BUY?
The sheer size of the book and the volumes of ideas, strategies and lesson plans makes this a super valuable training tool for aquatic fitness professionals. It is also super affordable. The paperback is $42.00 and the Kindle edition is $32.00. The book may be purchased online at Human Kinetics or at Amazon.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christine Alexander has been a water fitness instructor since 1993. She teaches aquatics classes for the Parks and Recreation Department in Plano, Texas, and she teaches an introductory course for water fitness instructors for the Parks and Recreation Department in McKinney, Texas. She is a nationally certified instructor through AEA and a member of the National Water Fitness Certification Committee for the US Water Fitness Association. She is also the author of Water Fitness Lesson Plans and Choreography (Human Kinetics, 2011) and she regularly contributes articles to AEA’s AKWA magazine.
MORE IDEAS & INFO
For ongoing training tips and ideas from Christine, please visit her website and bookmark her Water Fitness Lessons blog.