Lose weight, Relax with Water Exercises

Lose weight, Relax with Water Exercises
www.thespec.com

Warm weather. Longer days. Quiet nights. Pool time!

Dr. Jane Katz, 67, is the author of Your Water Workout! (Broadway, $17.95) and a 1964 U.S. Olympic swim team member.

She’s now a physical education professor at the University of New York, teaching fire and police officers to swim, and working with senior centres to promote water exercise.

She has simple advice for the overweight, sedentary, stiff-in-the-joints, anti-exercise, keep-my-hair-dry crowd: Get yourself into a pool, watch your blood pressure come down, feel your joints relax and enjoy life again.

Katz was one of the first fitness experts to promote water therapy, pioneering it after a 1975 automobile accident left her with broken bones. Here is an edited excerpt of a recent interview with her.

Q: You have three new DVDs on aquatic workout?

A: Yes, available on my website, drjanekatz.com.

The message stays the same — work out in the water and when you exercise, your limbs relax and loosen, you lose weight more quickly, you can exercise longer.

Here’s the key: You can watch the video, note the exercises you like, and do them on your own. Anything you do will help.

Q: What’s the big deal about water exercise as opposed to land therapies?

A: In the water, you are 75 per cent gravity-free. You feel refreshed. You don’t overheat.

Any lower-leg injury is benefitted by water therapy. Hip or knee replacement. And also bursitis, arthritis, fibromyalgia. Just walking in shallow water lets you move more freely.

Q: Why do seniors often resist water therapy?

A: I think for lots of reasons. They think they’ll get their hair wet, for example. I tell them they will not have their heads in the water. This is all about buoyancy.

Then there’s the business about body image in a bathing suit. Well, find a neighbourhood pool or program and just go. No one’s really noticing you, trust me.

Q: Water isn’t the only exercise people should do, is it?

A: Oh, no! A combination of water, Pilates, yoga and tai chi is ideal. Turf to surf.

Q: You’ve said water is a comforting exercise medium for seniors?

A: I always think the water is democratic. A great equalizer.

Lose weight, Relax with Water Exercises
www.thespec.com