fbpx

7 Pool Exercises to Keep You in Shape in Perry, Georgia

Back to Blog

Your inground pool is a great place to relax, spend time with friends and family, soak up the beautiful summer weather, and replace the Middle Georgia heat with the sensation of plunging into cool, clear water. But it’s also a highly effective place to work out.

Exercising in water is an incredible way to stay in shape. Pool exercises are considerably lower-impact than their land-based counterparts, creating far fewer opportunities for exercise-related injuries, such as sprains, strains, fractures, and repetitive-motion injuries. Whether you’ve equipped your Perry, Georgia, home with a small soaking pool or a full-size Olympic lap pool, you can take advantage of the health benefits your pool can provide.

When equipped with ankle and arm weights, foam dumbbells, and a few other inexpensive accessories, you can turn your Perry, Georgia, inground pool into a complete home gym. This month, we’ll look at seven exercises you can do in your pool that will help keep you fit and healthy. When done together, these exercises provide a reasonably comprehensive full-body workout that exercises every major muscle group and improves overall flexibility.

Walking In Water

This exercise is a great warmup and an excellent way to explore how moving in water creates the resistance that makes water-based exercise so effective. Just like the title suggests, this exercise involves nothing more than walking:

  • Start off in water that’s near waist height.
  • Lengthen your spine and walk the way you would on land: planting your heel first, then lowering your toes. Avoid walking on your tiptoes or the balls of your feet.
  • Keep your arms by your side, under the water, and swing them as you walk.
  • Walk for 5-10 minutes before starting your next exercise.
  • For additional resistance and greater benefit, wear arm or ankle weights while you walk.

Water Arm Lifts

Arm muscles are the targets for these exercises. You can boost the benefit you receive from this exercise by adding foam dumbbells. These highly buoyant accessories work just like regular dumbbells, only in reverse: instead of having to work hard to lift them, you have to work hard to force them deeper into the water.

  • Stand in water that’s about shoulder-deep.
  • Hold your arms or your dumbbells at your side with the palms of your hands facing forward.
  • Draw your elbows in close to your body while you slowly lift your forearms forward to the surface of the water.
  • Rotate your wrists to face your palms downward and lower your arms back to your sides.
  • Do 1-3 sets of 10 reps each.

Lateral Arm Lifts

This exercise is another that’s improved with the addition of foam dumbbells. Lateral arm lifts target your upper body, particularly your shoulders, chest, back, and upper arms.

  • Stand in water that’s about shoulder-deep.
  • Hold your arms or your dumbbells at your side as though you’re just standing normally.
  • Raise your arms out to the sides until they’re even with your shoulders, then lower them back down to your side.
  • Do 1-3 sets of 10 reps each.

Back Wall Glide

Strengthening your core and lower body are the significant benefits of the back wall glide.

  • Face the wall of the pool and hold onto the ledge.
  • Still holding on, fold your knees against your chest and plant your feet into the wall of the pool.
  • Push off from the wall and float backward as far as you can.
  • Pull your knees back into your chest, then extend your legs down to the bottom of the pool.
  • Run back to the starting point.
  • Do wall glides for about 5-10 minutes.

Jumping Jacks

Just like jumping jacks on land, jumping jacks in the water work muscles in every part of the body.

  • Stand in about chest-high water with your feet together and arms by your sides.
  • Jump while spreading your legs and lifting your arms over your head.
  • Jump again while lowering your arms and bringing your legs back together.
  • Do 1-3 sets of 10 reps each.

Leg Shoots

Leg shoots are a fun and effective exercise for your core, legs, and lower back.

  • Perform this exercise in the deep end of the pool, or ensure that your feet do not touch the bottom of the pool while you’re exercising.
  • Bring your knees to your chest, then kick them out quickly to the front so that you’re floating on your back.
  • Bring your knees to your chest again and kick them out behind you so that you’re now floating on your stomach.
  • Do 1-3 sets of 10 reps each.

High-Knee Lift Extensions

This last exercise will build muscle in your core and lower body and can be especially good for you when performed with ankle weights.

  • Stand in water up to your waist.
  • Tense your core muscles and lift your right leg, bending the knee until your knee is at the surface of the water. Hold that position for 3-5 seconds.
  • Extend your leg to full length and hold that position for 3-5 seconds.
  • Slowly lower your straightened leg back to the bottom of the pool.
  • Repeat with your left leg.
  • Continue performing high-knee lift extensions for 5-10 minutes.

Bonus: Get In Your Cardio With Laps

While the exercises above will work wonders for your strength and flexibility, most of them aren’t, strictly speaking, cardiopulmonary exercises. To get the maximum health advantage from your inground pool, pair this type of strength and flexibility training with vigorous laps around the pool. Lap swimming is one of the lowest-impact cardio exercises you can do and also one of the most beneficial, as the water’s natural resistance builds your strength while you do your cardio.

Swimming is also one of the best calorie burners out there. One hour of swimming a medium-pace crawl stroke burns upwards of 500 calories, nearly twice what the same amount of brisk walking burns.

Stay Hydrated When You’re In the Water

One important thing to note about pool exercises is that hydration is still crucial. While you’re in the water, your body will stay cooler than it does when you’re exercising on land, so you’ll sweat less. Whatever sweat you do produce will be washed away by the water, so you may not even realize you’re sweating. You probably won’t get as thirsty exercising in water as you do on land, either.

All that makes for a potentially dangerous and somewhat unexpected threat – suffering dehydration while immersed in water. Whether you’re just doing a few reps of a low-impact flexibility exercise or are engaging in a full-body workout with cardio laps, remember to stay hydrated. Drink plenty of water before, during, and after your exercise to make sure your body has the hydration it needs to carry out the functions of life.

Get in Shape and Stay Cool Doing It in Perry, Georgia, This Summer – Call Mid State Pools and Let Us Build You a Place to Get Fit! 478-953-7300

Mid State Pools and Spas builds custom pools for residential and commercial customers in:

  • Warner Robins
  • Macon
  • Forsyth
  • Perry
  • Milledgeville
  • Lake Oconee
  • And all across Middle Georgia!