Core exercise workout – on water: advanced exercises for abs, back, hips and pelvis requiring balance and coordination at The Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong
- The Mandarin Spa’s ‘Aquafit Float’ class kicks things up a notch with exercises taking place on boards floating on the hotel’s swimming pool. We gave it a try
- Keeping your balance and not falling in the water adds a whole new challenge to otherwise manageable exercises
Do you find it boring doing endless sit-ups, planks and resistance-band exercises to keep your core strong? If so, now you can kick things up a notch at The Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong’s Mandarin Spa, which is offering a new class in the hotel’s swimming pool that has you doing those exercises on a board floating on water and trying to keep your balance in the process.
This “Aquafit Float” class is reminiscent of one I took more than two years ago at its sister hotel, the Landmark Mandarin Oriental, that offered “Pool Fitmat Yoga”. Standing on floating mats tethered together, we did yoga poses focused on balancing such as warrior, reverse goddess and even wheel poses.
Three of us from the media tried out that class as guinea pigs, and one fell into the water part of the way through (not me!).
Concerned I might fall off my board into the swimming pool, I wore my swimsuit underneath a T-shirt and shorts when I recently tried out the class that has been on offer since late July. Like in the Pool Fitmat Yoga class, the floating boards were tethered together and we had to crawl gingerly from the side of the pool onto them.
Our instructor, Jason Chung Hon-leung – a triathlete, marathoner and competitive bodybuilder – looked super fit with his imposing bulging biceps. He taught the class from the pool’s edge, while we tried to acclimatise to being on a floating board. Whenever we had to change positions on the board and shift our body weight, we would affect each other’s balance.
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Chung started us off slowly with what he described as dynamic stretches, or warm-up exercises. These included making big circles with our arms, and the cat-cow and cobra yoga poses. Then he got us to bend our right knee, left leg back, and raise our left arm. This was not too difficult.
But when he asked us to keep our knee bent and raise our right arm, that’s when the wobbling started. It wasn’t easy to keep in this position and my body was shaking. We were already sweating – and it was only the warm-up.
Then he gave us each a red resistance band, the lightest, for strength training, which we threaded through two handles at the top of our board. While sitting with our legs in front of us, we began working our biceps and triceps by pulling the band towards our face or behind us. This also worked our glutes, lower back, chest and shoulders.
The third part of the programme involved working on our core. Chung put us through our paces with sit-ups, ankle touches – which seemed harder while floating – scissor legs and leg raises. We were huffing and puffing, working extra hard because the Post photographer kept asking us to pose for pictures. Periodically Chung would give us a 15-second break.
After a longer rest it was back to business, lying on our backs, knees up and trying to reach them. Then he got us to do bird-dog (on hands and knees, then extending one arm with the alternate leg), which was challenging while balancing on the board.
Stationary planking was not too difficult for me, but when it came to plank taps (where you hold a plank with straight arms and then tap your hand to the opposite shoulder) I found it was too hard to keep my body stable on the floating mat. I had to downgrade to doing it on my knees, which wasn’t particularly effective. Side bends were quite difficult, too.
We also did the superman pose (lying on our stomach, hands extended in front of our head, then lifting our arms and legs up off the board) before finishing with the mountain climber (on all fours, driving our right knee towards our chest then back, repeating with the left knee, pausing for a quick rest and repeating two more times). Chung advised us not to do it too fast, to avoid toppling into the pool. I made sure to keep my pace slow and steady to complete the three reps.
I was relieved that the one hour was almost up, and Chung helped us cool down with some yoga stretches for our hands and arms, including twists.
After the class, as I changed back into my regular clothes and left the hotel, I could feel my core still burning. It felt like I’d done my body good – for a solid hour.
Aquafit Float is available at 11am on Tuesdays and 6pm on Thursdays, HK$400 per person for spa members and in-house guests, HK$900 for non-members, and includes a day pass to the facilities at The Mandarin Spa. For more details call 2825 4903.
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