No watered-down workout

MANILA, Philippines - It’s hard to get back on the wagon after you’ve rolled off of it. Take exercise, for example: a couple of years back, I was a gym fiend, spending an average of 12 hours a week in there working out. Then, a more punishing work schedule happened, and month by month, I was saying goodbye to the definition in my muscles. Right now, I’m in the thick of saying hello to brand-new inches and pounds that I seem to be gaining non-stop, and I can’t get into a new exercise groove, no matter how I try. I easily lose my breath after a very brief sprint, I get tired in the middle of sparring sessions to the point of yawning in my trainer’s face, and I am much more inclined to cheat on my jogging sessions by doing more walking than jogging. The level of physical resistance and the enthusiasm I had for fitness that was built up over two years were easily broken down in matter of months, and it almost seems impossible to build them up again.

There might be hope for me yet, though, and other exercise 12-steppers. Water aerobics, a low-impact exercise that has become a growing trend among fitness enthusiasts, promises to be a viable alternative to land-based exercise, with fewer chances for injuries as well as minimal muscle and joint pain.

The RCBC Fitness First Platinum branch, the only fitness club with a swimming pool, has been offering this exercise option to its members since 2001. Says Leo Velez, Fitness First Philippine Group exercise senior manager, “Our members are well-read and well-informed about the latest fitness innovations, and we want to offer them as many alternatives in the gym.” With the gym’s sleek-looking indoor pool and the exciting premise of a novel workout regimen, gym members have taken to water aerobics like fish to, well, water.

I got the chance to try the exercise out myself. Chest-deep in the pool’s pleasantly warm water with the rest of the class, it was easy for me to imagine that moving my limbs through the water would be a piece of cake, but the instructor soon warned us of the huffing and puffing ahead.

Lunges, arm curls, squats, torso-twisting — it’s just like land-based aerobics but with its own particular level of difficulty. As water resistance and our buoyancy made it difficult for us to keep our limbs in proper position during the exercises, we worked harder at keeping our bodies in balance, especially with the instructor pointing out what was wrong with our forms. Unlike ordinary aerobics classes, where one tends to confuse speed with the effectivity of the exercise, water aerobics doesn’t let you cheat because stabilizing your position is important to keep upright in the water; we could hardly keep our feet flat on the bottom of the pool to begin with. It also pushed us to focus on working our muscles more, as water resistance makes even the simple act of curling our biceps or lunging pretty challenging.

Different floatation devices like water dumbbells and the “noodle” (a long strip of Styrofoam-like material) are also used in some exercises to add a level of difficulty, and believe me, those noodles are a bitch to hold down underwater. In the middle of doing twisting lunges across the pool while hugging a twisted noodle close to my chest, I was breathing audibly out of my mouth from the effort.

While water aerobics can get difficult, it is still quite safe for a large group of people, even those with injuries and the elderly. Due to the minimal stress it puts on the joints, the typical effects of high-impact exercises such as knee pains are foregone, but the fat-burning, muscle-toning, and endurance-building benefits remain. In one exercise where we had to use the noodles as a sort of jump rope, the instructor taunted us about the abilities of his other students: “Even the grandmas can do it, so don’t tell me you can’t!” He was kind of a taskmaster, that one.

The usual water aerobics class lasts for 45 minutes to an hour, with the promise of approximately 300 calories burned after 30 minutes of activity. Yet not for a second in our 45-minute class did I feel fatigued or feel like throwing in the towel; in fact, the harder the position the instructors had us do, the more gung-ho I was to get it right. I guess it helped that our bodies were kept from overheating by the water and we didn’t really feel as if we were sweating.

After a short cool-down, the class happily clambered out of the pool, endorphins zipping through our veins. It was a shock, though, to get back on land and rediscover the power of gravity: my limbs suddenly felt like sacks of wet cement. Yet the fatigue I felt just convinced me that water aerobics is a great way to deceive exercise-averse folks into doing and working out more. I should know: I’ve fallen for it hook, line and sinker.

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For inquiries, call 848-0000 or visit www.fitnessfirst.com.ph.