When your knees, hips, shoulders or other joints start to ache, exercise can sometimes feel like the last thing you want to do. But staying active and maintaining strength can be an important part of supporting joint health.
The challenge is finding a way to move and build strength without placing unnecessary stress on your body.
That’s where aquatic exercise has a unique advantage.
Water creates an environment where you can move with less impact on your joints while still working your muscles against resistance. And while pool exercise is often associated with rehabilitation or gentle exercise, it can be much more than that.
With the right movements and equipment, the pool can become a highly effective place to build strength, improve fitness and keep your body moving - without the pounding associated with many land-based workouts.
Why is exercise in water easier on your joints?
One of the biggest benefits of exercising in water is buoyancy.
When you’re immersed in water, buoyancy helps support your body weight. This reduces the amount of load placed on weight-bearing joints such as your knees, hips and ankles.
For someone experiencing joint discomfort, that can make movements such as walking, squatting, lunging or raising the knees feel more comfortable than performing the same movements on land.
But reduced impact doesn't mean reduced benefit.
Water also provides natural resistance, meaning your muscles have to work as you move through it. This combination - less impact on the joints with resistance for the muscles - is what makes aquatic exercise such an interesting training environment.
Can you build strength without heavy weights?
Absolutely!
Every movement you make in the pool has to work against the resistance of the water.
Unlike traditional weights, where resistance is primarily created by gravity, water provides resistance in multiple directions. Push forward and the water pushes back. Change direction and you're immediately working against resistance again.
You can increase this resistance in different ways. Moving faster and with greater effort naturally increases the resistance you feel, while purpose-built aquatic resistance equipment - such as Hydrorevolution's Aqualogix Bells and Fins - increases the surface area moving through the water to create greater drag.
This allows you to progressively challenge your muscles and turn familiar strength movements into effective resistance exercises, without relying on heavy external loads.
The harder you push, the harder the water pushes back.
Strong muscles can help support your joints
Joint-friendly exercise isn't only about reducing impact.
Building and maintaining strength in the muscles surrounding your joints can also help support movement, stability and everyday function.
Think about the muscles around your knees and hips, for example. Strong glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings and core muscles all contribute to how your body moves and manages load.
The same applies to the upper body. Strengthening the muscles surrounding the shoulders, back and core can contribute to better overall movement and stability.
Aquatic resistance training allows you to target these muscle groups while taking advantage of the supportive environment of the water.
Is aquatic exercise good for knee and hip pain?
The knees and hips are two areas where exercising in water can be particularly appealing because buoyancy reduces the amount of body weight those joints need to support.
Instead of avoiding lower-body exercise altogether, the pool may allow you to continue working movements such as:
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Squats
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Lunges
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Knee drives
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Leg extensions
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Hip abduction and adduction
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Walking or jogging
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Lower-body resistance exercises
Using aquatic fins or other drag-resistance equipment can add resistance to these movements, helping strengthen the muscles around the hips and knees without adding the same type of external load you might use in a gym.
If you have an injury, arthritis or ongoing joint pain, however, it's important to speak with your healthcare provider or physical therapist about which types of exercise are appropriate for you.
What about arthritis?
Aquatic exercise is commonly used by people living with arthritis because water can provide a comfortable environment for movement while still allowing the body to exercise.
But there's an important distinction to make:
Joint-friendly doesn't have to mean gentle.
Your workout can be adapted to your ability and goals.
Someone beginning an exercise program may perform slower, controlled movements with minimal resistance. Someone fitter or more experienced can perform those same movements faster, increase their range of motion or add drag-resistance equipment to create a significantly more challenging workout.
That's one of the unique characteristics of training in water: resistance responds to you.
Is aquatic exercise only for people with joint problems?
Not at all.
You don't need to wait until your joints hurt to start thinking about how you train them.
For active adults and athletes, aquatic exercise can provide another way to build strength and cardiovascular fitness while reducing repetitive impact on the body.
If your usual week already includes running, sports, gym workouts or other high-impact activities, adding a pool-based resistance workout can give you another training stimulus without simply adding more pounding.
This makes aquatic training useful not only for rehabilitation, but also for strength, recovery, cross-training and long-term fitness.
Swimming isn't your only option
When people think about exercising in a pool, swimming laps is often the first thing that comes to mind.
But you don't need to be a swimmer to take advantage of the water.
Many movements you might perform in a gym can be adapted for the pool - including squats, lunges, chest presses, rows, curls, tricep extensions, core rotations and more.
Aquatic resistance equipment can increase the amount of drag, ensuring you get the most from every move!
Instead of lifting against gravity, you're pushing and pulling against water.
More strength. Less impact.
One of the biggest misconceptions about low-impact exercise is that it also has to be low intensity.
Aquatic resistance training challenges that idea.
Water gives you the ability to control how hard you work while reducing impact on the body. You can slow things down when you need to or increase your speed and effort when you're ready for more.
Whether you're managing joint discomfort, looking for an alternative to high-impact training or simply thinking about how you want to keep your body strong for years to come, the pool deserves a place in the conversation.
At Hydrorevolution, we believe your pool can be much more than somewhere to swim.
It can be your gym.
Ready to experience aquatic resistance training?
Hydrorevolution's aquatic resistance equipment is designed to help you build full body strength and improve your overall fitness.
Get started by following one of our FREE aquatic workout programs and discover just how challenging a low-impact workout can be.
Turn your pool into a gym and start training with the resistance of water.