Designed to showcase the primary water exercises and the muscle actions for each, The Why Water Workout can be performed in both deep and shallow water. Educate your participants while challenging them with a total- body cardio workout. Consider using this workout at the beginning of seasonal sessions when you have new participants. An optional online CEC quiz and 11-page handout worth 2.0 AEA CECs is also available for additional cost.
Years ago, I created the “Why Water” presentation and encouraged instructors to offer this seminar at their facilities to encourage more people to try water fitness. The presentation included a power point presentation, a handout and a video depicting 10 reasons why you should exercise in water. The Why Water Workout takes this a step further by transforming the theory of the Why Water presentation into an action-packed workout that promotes the benefits of water exercise. Below is the original Why Water – 10 Reasons video.
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER
Continuing education is essential for fitness instructors. There is never a point when the learning should stop. Moreover, they should pass on their continuing education to their students. Empowering their participants with knowledge will help them understand the purpose behind the movement and exercise more efficiently. Connecting mind and body is important for achieving fitness results. Simply put, understanding which muscle you are working can help someone move with greater precision and intention.
WHY BASE MOVES?
All of the workouts on Fitmotivation have something in common. They all include variations of jogs, kicks, leg curls, jacks, skis, jumps and tucks. Why use the same moves? All fitness formats/programs have their base or primary exercises. These are the moves that best achieve results depending on fitness goals, programming and equipment used. In aquatic fitness, the equipment being used is the water itself. Therefore, the primary exercises are those that best utilize the properties of water. There are less than 25 basic or primary moves recognized in water fitness. If instructors only taught these 25 moves, exercise sessions would become tedious and results would plateau. Therefore, one of the most essential skills an instructor can possess is the ability to create endless variations of the primary moves using a variety of variational techniques. Fitmotivation has addressed this skillset in several videos and online ed programs. In the Why Water Workout, we focus on the “pure” base moves and WHY we do these moves. WATCH Mark explain.
UNDERSTANDING MUSCLE ACTIONS
The Why Water Workout is designed to show WHY the base moves deliver fitness results by explaining the muscles being targeted in each primary exercise. For example, a knee-high jog involves lifting legs bent at the knee up and down. As the bent leg moves upward with hip flexion, the iliopsoas (hip flexors) are targeted. As the bent leg moves downward the gluteus maximus is recruited with hip extension. Pressing down more firmly and slightly behind will put more emphasis on the glutes. Armed with this information, a person can exercise smarter and more efficiently.
INCREASING INTENSITY WITH TRAVEL
Traveling moves is a key technique for increasing intensity in water fitness and the Why Water Workout showcases this essential element of aquatic exercise. Thanks to Newton’s Law of Inertia, the action of starting and stopping travel and making frequent changes will generate more intensity as a result of total body inertia. Reversing travel direction also interacts with the water’s inertia as you encounter a current of resistance created by your body’s frontal surface area as it travels through the water’s viscosity.
CORE ENGAGEMENT
The last eight base moves in the WWW video focus on moves that recruit core muscles, as well as techniques for getting more core involvement in movement. Techniques include increasing range of motion for spinal flexion and rotation and removing the arms and legs from a movement to force more core engagement.
LINKING BASE MOVES FOR A WORKOUT
Building a class with base moves ensures that the exercises are purposeful and provide muscular balance. Base moves are linked together at the end of each WWW segment and as a finale to demonstrate HOW moves can be instructed to create a workout. Participants often attend classes because they bore easily with self-directed fitness activities, such as walking and swimming. Classes are more fun because they contain a variety of movement and teaching styles that keep participants excited and engaged with the exercise experience.
DEEP & SHALLOW
The Why Water Workout can be performed in both deep and shallow. Why? Designing a workout where people can choose the depth they prefer is simply good customer service. Aquatic enthusiasts DO have strong preferences. Lately, COVID restrictions have made dual-depth programming a must as facilities are mandating that students spread out across the pool to avoid close contact. Most base moves work in both depths as evidenced by this workout.
The Why Water Workout includes an optional online quiz and an 11-page extended education handout worth 2.0 CECSs. Now is a good time to earn CECs at home with Fitmotivation Online Education. Whether you use this video for your own knowledge or as a way to educate your students, knowledge is power and both you and your students will benefit from understanding WHY WE DO THE MOVES THAT WE DO.