Happy New Year and GOODBYE to 2020! Get ready to turbo-charge your post-holiday workout schedule. The Cardio Abs Wall Workout is an intense 15-minutes of athletic core training using the pool wall. This cardio-core training can be done in either deep or shallow water.
In normal times, I would leave the wall workouts to Jenni Lynn Patterson LaCour & Chris LaCour, who have thrilled subscribers with their S’WET by Jenni Lynn Fitness pool wall exercises. However, 2020 was anything but normal. The corona virus has prevented many of the regular PoolFit instructors from traveling to Florida. Thankfully some Florida colleagues have been able to pitch in, but for the most part recent content has been created by me, myself and I.
Consequently, I have been analyzing what videos have been popular in the past in order to spark some ideas for new content. Jenni Lynn’s S’WET Boot Camp was the most popular video of 2015, largely due to her innovative use of the pool wall. Therefore, I decided to channel my inner S’WET Fitness by putting together a short wall workout. During my pool practice sessions, I could feel my gut sizzling and so I decided to tweak the workout into a cardio abs training by accentuating spinal flexion and extension in the movements.
The Cardio Abs Wall Workout features four mini-circuits and each circuit includes three wall exercises. Exercise #1 features a kicking movement that uses the wall either as a target or a point of stability. Exercise #2 features a wall tap movement, using the wall as a target. This involves facing the pool wall from a distance of two or three feet so that kicks or taps can be aimed at the wall. Obviously, caution should be made to make light contact with the pool wall. As mentioned above, the kicks and wall taps featured in this workout were tweaked by adding extra range of motion in either spinal flexion or rotation, generating more involvement of core muscles.
The pool wall can also be used as a point of stability to hang on. For example, wide jogs (mountain climbers) and rear kicks (donkey kicks) are used to fire up the core. The wall can also be used for stability for Exercise #3 in each circuit, a version of a wall push-off. Wall-push-offs involve hanging on to the wall’s edge and pushing off the wall with both feet, propelling yourself as far back into the pool as you can. The objective is to make your way back to the wall and repeat the push-off. HOW you make your way back to the wall creates lots of exercise intensity and creativity. Think jogs, sprints, skis, swimming and more. The return moves in this workout featured core exercises, such as ankle reaches, twists, tucks, moguls and more.
The Cardio Abs Wall Workout can be performed in either deep or shallow water. The video was filmed in the deep end, but this workout can easily be done in chest-high water with no modifications.
The Cardio Abs Wall Workout is part of a new 15-minute series of workouts. The 15-minute series was developed based on a subscriber’s feedback, as was the recent emphasis on ab training and stretching. Do you like the 15-minute series? Do you have any suggestions for content? I would love to hear your input. Instead of analyzing older videos for ideas, I would rather be inspired by suggestions from subscribers. Email me at markgrev@poolfit.tv.
Wishing you all health, happiness and a return to better days in 2021.