Who needs a gym if you’ve got the best fitness equipment in your backyard pool? This 55-minute water workout features total body interval training using nothing but the water’s resistance. AquaGym Fitness is back with another pool workout that proves water fitness is no joke.
Known for their high-powered interval style, AquaGym Fitness (AGF) Workouts #1 - #4 have become popular on PoolFit. AGF Workout #5, Total Body Power, featuring Stephanie Newberry and special guest, Pashence Marie Can, will not disappoint fans of their intense and athletic water workouts.
NO EQUIPMENT
Fans of water exercise are often misled into the belief that you have to add foam dumbbells or some other kind of equipment in order to make the pool workout challenging. We rate that statement as: FALSE! Equipment is NOT needed to make the workout more challenging or effective. The water itself is a form of all-encompassing resistance, delivering 12 times more resistance than air. Since your entire body is submerged, this resistance is acting on ALL of your muscles. If you use equipment in every pool workout you are missing out on the skill of applying maximum force against water’s resistance. This occurs by pushing, pulling, kicking, sweeping and moving the limbs more forcefully through the water. Additional equipment can impede this velocity. Before equipment is ever used in a water workout, an exercise participant should be fully skilled at utilizing the water’s resistance.
TOTAL BODY
Different from the other four AGF interval workouts, Total Body Power derives its name because each of the 7 blocks focuses on a different muscle group or training technique.
Block 1: Legs
The muscle groups of the legs represent the greatest percentage of musculature in the body and therefore demand more oxygen and effort during exercise. Choosing three leg exercises in the first block ensures that every subsequent block will end with the most intense exercises.
Block 2: Arms & Shoulders
Movements borrowed from kickboxing are used to target the biceps, triceps and deltoids in this next trifecta of exercises.
Block 3: Core
Training the core in water can be lots of fun given the uplifting force of buoyancy and the creativity this provides. These three exercises include elevated moves where the feet leave the pool floor for a period of time.
Block 4: Suspended
The uplifting force of buoyancy also allows you to remove feet completely off the pool floor for an extended period of time while exercising in water. Suspended moves do not target any one particular muscle group, but they very much force more work from the core.
Block 5: Chest & Back
Longer lever movements of the arms, as well as specific hand positions are used to target pectoralis, latissimus and mid-trapezius.
Block 6: Kicks & Plyo
These three exercises return the focus back to legs with the added power of plyometric bounding off the pool floor.
Block 7: Total Body
The final three moves are examples of compound exercises, which target multiple muscle groups.
POWER
Like other AGF Workouts, the intervals in Total Body Power progress throughout the 7 blocks of interval action in duration and thus intensity throughout the workout. Three exercises are introduced in every block and performed for 30 seconds each. Block 1 starts at 90 seconds and Block 7 culminates in over 10 minutes of intense add-on interval action.
EXERCISE TEMPLATES
All five AGF Workouts posted on PoolFit include exercise templates. If you haven’t heard me say this before – I LOVE templates. A template represents a structure. A structure represents an organized and systematic presentation of exercises. Movements aren’t just randomly selected. They are purposefully selected to reflect the goals of the workout. At any time, these exercises can be swapped out for new ones. For example, let’s say that after performing this pool workout several times, you start to get bored and your body becomes accustomed to the challenge. You do not have to switch workouts, you just have to select new exercises to insert in the timed intervals of the template. Many of PoolFit’s workouts are based on templates and subscribers should feel empowered changing up the exercises. I do it all the time with the Tabata workouts – Aqua Tabata Deep and Aqua Total Body Tabata. I love the Tabata timing structure, but often want to mix up the outcomes by inserting different exercises. Over time, you will develop your own favorite exercises and you should feel comfortable doing this as well. WATCH Stephanie explain how exercises can be changed up in a template.
SPECIAL GUEST
In addition to Stephanie, also included in the video is Pashence Marie Can, who has been attending AquaGym Fitness classes for the past year. Pashence has a personal passion for water and spends much of her time traveling the world practicing her free diving skills and underwater photography. Follow her and her photos of amazing underwater acrobats on her Instagram account.
AquaGym Fitness is an aquatic fitness company based in northern Florida in the Jacksonville area offering private training and classes in resort communities, county clubs and recreation centers. Check out their other three videos streaming on PoolFit: Progressive Ladders, Run2Strength, Partner Drills and Combat Basics. Stay tuned for another AquaGym Fitness interval workout next month.