Aquafit and the healing benefits of exercising in water

Morning North5:23Wellness column - aqua fitness

The benefits of exercising in the water... The CBC's Jan Lakes speaks with aqua fit instructor Beverly Mann about how exercising in water can heal the body and soul.

A YMCA volunteer says taking aquafitness classes helped her to heal her broken back and with lasting results.

After Beverly Mann broke her back in 1981 in a workplace accident, she wentthrough surgery and physiotherapy, but she kept being held back by painfulrelapses.Even after joining the military, shehad to get an early discharge because of her back.

Mann told CBC Newsit wasn't untila physiotherapist convinced her to get in the pool for water therapy at the YMCA that"I really felt better, almost immediately."

"Just being in the water, taking the weight off your joints, and being able to move naturally was such a wonderful thing that I had to keep coming back and back," she said.

"It was hard to go from swimming in beautiful lakes to a chlorinated pool, but I go over it."

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Eventually she became an instructor. For her, working in the deep end is the secret to maximum fitness without pain.

The buoyancy of water provides "a reduction in pain that was simply amazing," Mann said. "For years I haven't used prescription pain killers. Even though I have discomfort, [there is] nolonger pain."

Mann says sheis a big believer in what is called "water running" in the deep end, and notes thatrunners and athletes use it as a tool of recovery and exercise.

"A hard-core runner should be able to keep their fitness peak for a least sixweeks, withoutlosing anything, just by water activity water running."

In the end, Mann says, the results speak for themselves.

"[There's] less pain, then more mobility, then losing weight and then just feeling better and better."