National health guidelines call for adults to get 2 hours and 30 minutes of exercise activity—like a fast walk or bike ride—each week. Exercise helps keep your body in shape, and it’s especially important when you have arthritis.
Carrying around excess weight can place extra pressure on your joints. And staying active has proven benefits for people with arthritis, including reduced pain and improved flexibility but traditional exercises can be painful when you have arthritis. This leaves sufferers with a dilemma on how to engage in exercise and remain active while avoiding pain that results from activity?
One answer is aquatic exercise - also referred to as aquarobics or aqua aerobics ( water areobics waterobics, aquatic fitness, aquafitness, aquafit). Research has shown that aquatic exercise is a great way to stay active while actually protecting, help reduce pain, and improve cardiovascular fitness, balance and range of motion.
Aquatic exercise is a low-impact activity that takes the pressure off your bones, joints and muscles. Water offers natural resistance, which helps strengthen your muscles. You can even do aquatic exercise if you don't know how to swim. You might start with water walking.
Aquatic Exercise and Arthritis
Aquatic exercise is often recommended for people with arthritis as a safe and effective means to improve:
- mobility,
- strength,
- endurance
- enhance well-being and
- reduce physical limitations
Arthritis,
which literally means “joint inflammation,” affects millions of people
in Nigeria and across the globe. According to the UK NHS, there’s over 100 different forms but
each type shares characteristics of joint pain, stiffness and potential
swelling.
Primarily consists of two types: rheumatoid and osteoarthritis.
Osteoarthritis is a degenerative condition that results from wear and tear on joints and breakdown of cartilage that covers the ends of bones. Symptoms include pain and stiffness, which can be relieved by movement.
Rheumatoid arthritis is a systemic disease affecting the entire body, symptoms include joint pain and inflammation, especially in the hands and feet, and leads to joint deformity over time. It’s less common, but still affecting thousands of people.
The challenge for people with rheumatoid arthritis is that inflammation prevents normal use of joints and limits activities. This reduced activity leads to loss of strength, endurance and mobility.
To avoid further loss of muscles and ligaments overtime, exercise can provide a safe, effective and much needed intervention.
Aims of Aquatic Exercises for People Suffering Arthritis
Physical:
- Decrease pain
- Increase mobility, strength and coordination
- Improve endurance
Mental and Emotional:
- Decrease depression
- Increase feelings of well-being, fun and pleasure.
- Increase socialization
Below are some Aquatic exercise principles for those with arthritis, however ensure you consult a doctor before starting any exercise programme, especially if suffering with rheumatoid arthritis:
- Try to exercise daily but work at your own pace and reduce intensity throughout exercise as needed.
- Provide an extended warm up, with a gentle range of motion exercises to fully warm up joints before performing more vigorous strengthening or conditioning exercises.
- Work at your own pace recognizing your own limits. Respect pain by adjusting the level of physical activity if needed and reduce intensity throughout exercise as needed.
- Move affected joints gently through a comfortable range of motion. Reduce range, decrease speed and minimize surface area to reduce intensity of movements.
- Submerge working joints in the water and wear thermal attire to maintain joint warmth (if needed) and exercise in warm swimming pools with temperatures between 28-31C.
- Wear aquatic exercise shoes for greater cushioning and support .
- Change activities and body positions frequently to avoid excessive joint strain from too many repetitions.
- Avoid extreme ranges of motion and overstretching, as well as excessive impact and/or resistance
- If using hand held equipment maintain a relaxed grip and take breaks for hand and wrist relief.
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