Water Exercise Programs for Your Swim Spa

Improving Balance and Flexibility

This program is designed to not only help with overall strength and coordination, but to increase mobility by improving balance, flexibility and core strength. Whether you're overcoming an injury after a fall or simply want to improve mobility, exercising in a swim spa provides a safe, more forgiving way to maximize your fitness.

Lower-back Post Surgery or Lower-back Injury

If you've ever skipped a workout because movement felt too painful, you're not alone. Many people with back pain find that land-based exercise can feel jarring or uncomfortable. Water exercise, however, provides natural buoyancy that reduces the strain on your joints and spine. This program is designed to not only help with overall strength and coordination, but to increase mobility by improving balance, flexibility and core strength. Whether you're overcoming an injury after a fall or simply want to improve mobility, exercising in a swim spa provides a safe, more forgiving way to maximize your fitness.

Parkinson's Live Well Program

This program is designed to help improve the body rigidity that people with Parkinson's often experience, enabling muscles to relax and regain flexibility. Using the swim spa water's natural resistance to support the body allows for increased freedom of movement and improves coordination and muscle function.

Recovering from Knee Surgery or Injury

When you are struggling with knee pain, even simple movements like walking up stairs or bending down can feel frustrating and limiting. Staying active is important, though Whether you're recovering from surgery or managing chronic discomfort, water exercise can help you move comfortably and improve your symptoms.

This swim spa program focuses on improving flexibility, strength, coordination, and most importantly — alignment of the body. Knee pain often results from imbalances or a lack of mobility in surrounding joints, such as the hips and ankles. By targeting these areas with carefully selected movements, this program helps reduce stress on the knee joint and encourages proper alignment, which is key to preventing further strain.

Multiple Sclerosis Live Well Program

This swim spa wellness program was developed to improve motion and flexibility for anyone living with multiple sclerosis. The swim spa water offers low-impact exercise as opposed to some on-land workouts. It also gives the body greater freedom of movement and often lessens the pain associated with multiple sclerosis by improving flexibility, strength, balance and coordination. From adjusting the water temperature during your workout, to utilizing the propulsion system and massage jets, the water supports and relaxes stiff muscles.

Arthritis Symptom Relief

This program was designed to offer symptom relief for those experiencing arthritis pain. In this swim spa wellness program, you'll work on improving posture, coordination, balance and motion. As you exercise, the properties of water will help to alleviate the stiffness, aches and swelling that many people with arthritis experience, as well as improve joint flexibility.

Post-Op Hip Replacement or Hip Injury

The Post-Op Hip Replacement or Hip Injury Recovery Program benefits those who are looking to train before, or recover after, a hip surgery, as well as those who experience chronic hip pain or muscle tightness. The swim spa exercises included in this program focus on improving mobility and strength to give you more controlled and balanced hip movement, which will help prevent future injuries and alleviate tightness in the hip flexors.

How to Recover from a Shoulder Injury

Repetitive use and improper posture can cause the muscles in your shoulders to misalign, which can cause injury and shoulder pain. The exercises in this injury recovery program use the swim spa water to relieve shoulder pain and are designed to improve posture, alignment, and flexibility, as well as help prevent future injuries.

Preventing Overuse Injuries

This program was designed to address the common overuse injuries that triathletes experience from intense endurance training. By focusing on balancing muscle groups that are overworked or underutilized, these exercises help to alleviate hip tightness and shoulder pain, as well as stabilize the core and improve posture.

How to Lose Weight in a Swim Spa

The Weight Loss Aquatic Exercise Program is a full-body, fat-blasting workout in your swim spa. This program starts with a dynamic warmup, and then turns up the volume on calorie burning by combining comprehensive upper and lower body workouts with interval training and fat-burning cardio. As an added challenge, increase the time and speed of your workout, or use the swim spa propulsion to add resistance.

Improving Your Golf Swing

This swim spa exercise program is tailored to golfers, helping to restore mobility and improve strength. By reducing the pull of gravity on the body, the swim spa water, in conjunction with this exercise program, will help provide greater freedom of movement. It may also help to reduce hip tightness and lower back pain, as well as improve hip rotation. Ultimately, these exercises help to retrain your body to have better patterning and positioning when you return to the golf course.

Dr. Rick McAvoy, PT, DPT, CSCS has specialized in Aquatic Physical Therapy and Sports Performance for over 25 years. He owns RMA (Rick McAvoy Aquatics), an Aquatic Fitness and Sports Performance Training and Consulting Company in Southern New England.

McAvoy is a published author and researcher in the field of aquatic therapy and fitness as well as sports performance. He trains and consults with numerous athletes and sports teams from professional sports, collegiate and high school teams, along with fitness and healthcare institutions. McAvoy is also a sought after Master Instructor of the Burdenko Method, which is a specialized form of dynamic aquatic and land-based techniques.

Known nationally and internationally, McAvoy lectures throughout the year to teach the benefits of aquatic therapy, fitness and sports performance to health clubs, athletic institutions and health care practices.

In addition, McAvoy is an adjunct faculty member at The University of New Hampshire in the Department of Kinesiology and Franklin Pierce University in the Doctoral of Physical Therapy program.