Get ready to travel, turn and tone in this 45-minute pool workout. All the travel forward and backwards, as well as the rewind turning action is reminiscent of yo-yoing. Aquatic Yo-Yos with Miff Hendriksen also includes focused muscle conditioning segments combined with the travel and turns to make this a cardio total body workout.
Traveling against the water’s resistance in a pool workout is an effective way to increase intensity, thanks to Newton’s Law of Inertia. Including lots of changes in a water workout utilizes inertia by starting, stopping and changing movement, such as frequent travel forwards and backwards, as well as changes in the movement of limbs. This physical law makes travel especially effective in water not only because of total body inertia and limb inertia, but also because of the water’s inertia. As your body moves forward, the water moves with you, and then as you move backwards you must do so in that powerful torrent of forward moving water. Do you remember playing with your childhood friends and running in a circle in an above ground pool, and then changing directions and trying to run back in the current? That is a good example of how inertia is applied in water fitness. Because of the popularity of traveling in water workouts, Miff was inspired to create a workout with forward and backwards travel as the centerpiece.
Aquatic Yo-Yo Pool Workout-at-a-Glance
Aquatic Yo-Yos includes a warm-up, cool down and five Yo-Yo exercise segments. Four of the are 8-minutes in length and the last is 4-minutes in length.
Each Yo-Yo segment includes forward and backward travel, directional turns which are referred to as the “rewind,” along with focused strength exercises. There is no equipment required in this shallow water workout, but webbed gloves would be ideal for adding extra resistance to the upper body.
The action in an 8-minute Yo-Yo exercise segment is as follows.
Exercise #1 Travels forward, and Exercise #2 Travels backward – repeat 3x
Muscle Conditioning Move #1
Rewind -Directional ¼ turns to the right with Exercise #3 and #4
Muscle Conditioning Move #1
Exercise #1 Travels forward, and Exercise #2 Travels backward – repeat 3x
Muscle Conditioning Move #1
Rewind -Directional ¼ turns to the left with Exercise #3 and #4
Muscle Conditioning Move #1
4-minutes
The template now repeats with Exercise #3 and #4 moving from the rewind position to the travel position, and two new exercises (#5 and #6) used as the new rewind/turning moves, as well as a second muscle conditioning exercise.
Exercise #3 Travels forward, and Exercise #4 Travels backward – repeat 3x
Muscle Conditioning Move #2
Rewind -Directional ¼ turns to the right with Exercise #5 and #6
Muscle Conditioning Move #2
Exercise #3 Travels forward, and Exercise #4 Travels backward – repeat 3x
Muscle Conditioning Move #2
Rewind -Directional ¼ turns to the left with Exercise #5 and #6
Muscle Conditioning Move #2
The above template is then repeated for three more 8-minute Yo-Yos, with all new exercises introduced. In Yo-Yo #2, exercises #5 and #6 move out of the rewind box and into the travel pattern. New exercises are then introduced for the rewind and for the muscle conditioning. The end result is a fun cardio workout that flows with predictable patterning and the power of overcoming inertia in a water workout.
Poolfit extends a big thank you to Miff for sharing her popular class format with subscribers. Check out all of Miff’s Poolfit water exercise videos.
