Let the games begin! Join Mark in the pool and get ready to unleash your inner athlete in a high intensity water workout. Aqua Olympics is a 45-minute water exercise video that showcases 8 Olympic events. This HIIT workout was filmed in shallow water, but it can also be performed in deep water.
OLYMPIC REQUEST
The Olympic Games begin on July 26 and Poolfit is here for it. Honestly, the Olympiad wasn’t even on my radar because I have been rather busy this summer. However, a subscriber emailed me last month and asked if I could create a video with an Olympic theme. Ironically, this is the same subscriber who emailed me last year and asked if I could do a video with an alphabet theme. Since I rose to the challenge with Aqua Alphabet, I figured I could do the same with Aqua Olympics.
TABATA STYLE
Given that this was a last-minute request and my July was fully booked, I only had a few days to pull the content together. Normally, I prefer weeks to work on video content. Therefore, I needed an “easy button” approach. A Tabata workout immediately came to mind. A Tabata Template features 8 rounds. Each 4-minute round includes 8 exercises performed at high intensity for 20 seconds, followed by 10 seconds of rest. For this template I selected four exercises for each round, with each performed twice. This seemed perfect because every athlete deserves a second chance to score higher. Now, the only thing left was to select the 8 Olympic events to fill up the 8 Tabata rounds. To do this, I cued up the Google machine and found a list of all the events being offered in the 2024 Summer Olympic Games.
Watch Mark talk more about the video and then read on for a description of all 8 Olympic events selected for the video.
POOL WORKOUT-AT-A-GLANCE
Aqua Olympics features a warm-up, cool down and 8 rounds of exercises, each correlating to a different event. The difficult part was selecting events that I felt comfortable creating water exercises for each each round. In a Tabata workout, there is very little time to demo an exercise and only 20 seconds to perform it. Therefore, the exercises in a Tabata workout are best kept simple, but powerful. This video was filmed and intended for shallow water. But upon completion of the routine, I tested it in deep water. All the exercises worked perfectly except three. Minor modifications for those are cued and explained in the video above.
8 OLYMPIC EVENTS
Swimming: Dive in and compete in the breaststroke, butterfly and flutter kick competitions.
Hockey: Time to head to the ice rink for some hockey action. Offense to defense, these water exercises pump up the heartrate.
Gymnastics: The games now shift to the gymnasium and primetime competition. Get ready to compete in four events, balance beam, floor exercise, parallel bars and uneven bars.
Boxing: Now it is off to the boxing ring for some hook shots, upper cuts, jabs and knockout punches. Boxing moves in the water are ideal for upper body toning.
Trampoline: The pool floor becomes a trampoline for this high intensity event. Be prepared to be judged on tuck jumps, straddle jumps, frog jumps and your jump height.
Karate: The games now switch to the karate competition area. Get ready to compete in front karate kicks, side karate kicks, rear karate kicks, and the finale – the triple kick.
Cycling: Have your pool noodle ready for the cycling events. Any Dollar Store noodle will do. The noodle is used for straddling, reclining and leaning on. The competitions include one leg cycling, reclined cycling, uphill biking and sprints.
Athletics: The Olympic Games conclude with the track and field events. The competitions include hurdles, triple jump, long jump and the 100-meter sprint.
I hope you enjoy this opportunity to be an Olympic champion in the pool. The water is the best and the safest place to channel your inner athlete. Enjoying Poolfit? Please consider leaving a review in the App Store or Play Store. There are lots of people wondering if water exercise could help them, and your nice review could encourage them to give it a try.