Whether you're recovering from an injury or just want to enhance your usual training regimen, aqua therapy can provide abundant benefits. In the pool, you can heal or strengthen your body without the jarring you experience when you exercise on land. The buoyancy of the water lets you work out effectively and safely, according to The Stretching Institute, which does research in the field of sports injuries.
Walking
Walking in chest-high water is good for healing and aerobic exercise, reports Spine-Health, a pain-relief website written by doctors. If you have a condition such as arthritis, walk forward and backward to exercise your leg muscles without stressing your joints. If you're looking for something more strenuous, use hand floats or weights. Spine-Health states that this can turn your session into a watery form of power walking.
Running and Skiing
The Stretching Institute advocates running in water to get a good workout. Your posture should be about the same as when you run on land, with your head up and your chest straight or slightly forward. Run with long, smooth strides, swinging your arms back and forth with your upper body relaxed. You can also try a pool version of jumping over hurdles, or cross-country skiing with your arms and legs straight as you push them back and forth through the water.
Kick Training
Try a variety of kicking exercises, suggests HipHelp.com, a website that offers therapeutic aqua activities. Hold onto the side of the pool and do a flutter kick face down and again on your back. Or brace yourself in a corner of the pool to do bicycle pedaling with your knees bent. While you're in the corner, try the scissor kick, too. You open your legs wide, cross one over the other, open again and cross the other one in front.
Stretching
Spine-Health recommends exercises to stretch and strengthen hip, leg and back muscles. Hold on to the side of the pool and stand on one leg with the knee bent a little. Stretch the other leg out in front, pull that knee to your chest and stretch it out again. Begin another exercise the same way, but this time raise and lower your outstretched leg in the water.
