Source:
https://scmp.com/magazines/style/well-being/article/3020209/how-underwater-kick-boxing-and-spinning-classes-made Wellness
How underwater kick-boxing and spinning classes made aqua fitness ‘cool’
- Hydro exercise isn’t new, but range of styles has transformed its image of ‘classes for grannies’ into ‘fun workouts’, writes Cari Shane
Aqua fitness. Photo: iStock/Getty Images
It’s a new, if not odd, sight inside some public pools in the American capital, Washington: people kicking submerged punchbags, spinning on poles that rise from the water, jumping up and down on floating boards.
For about six months, hundreds of residents have been getting their feet wet with new “HydroSuite” classes – part of Mayor Muriel Bowser’s #FitDC initiative. HydroPole, HydroKick and HydroBoard join HydroSpin (the water version of land favourite, spinning), offered since 2015.
While hydro fitness has been around for decades, its “cool” factor has shot up over the past few years. Now you can find hydro classes cropping up in gyms in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen and university campuses such as the University of Oklahoma.
They are extremely popular internationally, too, in countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
The re-brand partly comes thanks to the promotional efforts of the non-profit Aquatic Exercise Association (AEA). Julie See, director of education at the AEA, says that “getting more people to understand the benefits of water … and the wide range of classes now available has helped to promote water exercise as beneficial for all ages and abilities”.
Aqua classes are no longer primarily viewed as the classes your grandmother takes.
That’s because so many of the hip new hydro classes are serious calorie burners, at 500 to 800 calories an hour.
With a focus on cardiorespiratory fitness, muscle strength and endurance, flexibility, neuromotor training and body composition, See says hydro classes can easily be modified to meet different exercise needs.
The biggest downside is the chlorine or bromine used to keep swimming pools clean, which can be a skin irritant for some participants.
The doctors I worked with taught me that your body … your health and wellness is what you make of it
I’ve never strayed far from lap-lane workouts, so this trend had escaped me until a chilly Sunday morning in March, when my attention was diverted from my usual back and forth to a group of people chest-deep in water kicking and punching at boxing bags as the teacher called out instructions.
The classes were established by Rashid Jones, a US Department of Parks and Recreation specialist certified in aquatic fitness.
Having “seen the result” of too little exercise while working as an autopsy technician at the District of Columbia medical examiner’s office and George Washington University Hospital, Jones is on a personal mission to help Washington residents.
“The doctors I worked with taught me that your body … your health and wellness is what you make of it,” Jones says.
It looked different and challenging, so I decided to try some classes. First, I joined in for part of a HydroKick class, alternating kicking and punching a bag with Wynonia Harris.
Harris, 44, who had been taking the class since October, knew what she was up against: water resistance. According to the AEA, water is 800 times denser – more viscous – than air. And the resistance is bidirectional.
So, when kick-boxing in water, my quads were working in one direction and my hamstrings in the other. This provides a more balanced workout, See says.
The HydroKick class – alternating kicking and punching a bag – was something different and was in the water, so I figured it would be less pressure on my knees … but I never knew we would sweat so much in the water
“It was something different and it was in the water, so I figured it would be less pressure on my knees,” Harris says about her decision to try HydroKick. She’s right.
Because of buoyancy, impact is reduced by about 50 per cent when you’re submerged to the waist and 75 per cent when you are submerged up to the chest.
Along with buoyancy and viscosity, research shows that hydrostatic pressure and thermodynamics play a role in enhancing a water exerciser’s fitness.
Hydrostatic pressure – a “multidirectional pressure” that pushes on the chest in water – makes breathing more difficult. Kinetics research suggests this added value forces even fit people who take to the water to develop stronger assistive breathing muscles.
“I never thought that I could sweat so much in the water,” Harris says. We do, indeed, sweat during water exercise, but because of thermodynamics, the water transfers heat away from the body faster than air.
I’ve taken one spin class in my life and I wasn’t a fan. But I found a sample HydroSpin class intriguing.
Joint-friendly, it felt like a constant uphill climb as we moved our hands into different positions on the bars as well as in the water and alternated standing and sitting while pedalling. After just a few minutes, I was feeling it.
Kimberly Carter, who hit the HydroSpin class with me, found it “very challenging but awesome”.
A retired police officer, Carter, 52, says she wants to “get back in shape [without] beating on my knee and [without] messing my joints up while healing my body”. The morning I met Carter, she had already taken the HydroKick class.
“I’m a glutton for punishment,” she says.
I found the HydroSpin class intriguing. Joint-friendly, it felt like a constant uphill climb as we moved our hands into different positions on the bars as well as in the water and alternated standing and sitting while pedalling. After just a few minutes, I was feeling it
Apparently, I am, too. I didn’t know real intensity until Jones had me try some HydroBoard exercises.
With the surfboard-wide floating mat tethered to the lane ropes by its four corners, I worked my core as I tried to centre myself while attempting to skipping rope (yes, on the unstable rocking board!), do a burpee or nail a bird dog plank without rolling into the water.
It didn’t help that I couldn’t stop laughing every time I lost my balance and fell in. It was one of the most fun and challenging experiences I’ve had in the water.