Walking in water is a wonderful way to speed up weight loss and turn the simple act of walking into a full body workout. An aquatic workout, water walking helps burn more calories than ground walking as water is denser than air and thus walking inside water requires more effort. Besides losing weight and working out joints and muscles, water walking can also be deeply relaxing and helps beat stress and anxiety.
For doing this aquatic workout, one needs to stand in waist or chest-deep water and keep the shoulders straight, and slowly move forward unless you put your foot ahead in the water on the bottom of the surface.
Water walking is part of hydrotherapy which is an age-old practice popular in ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece and Rome and was used in both alternative and mainstream treatments. The therapy was used in pain relief, joint pain relief, arthritis, relaxation, improved skin, and mental well-being.
According to The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, walking in water can raise your heart rate more than walking on ground which can give your heart and lungs a better workout.
Benefits of water walking
Beats stress and anxietyBeing in water naturally relaxes and de-stresses you as water activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which allows the body to tune into the 'rest and digest' mode.
Weight loss
Walking in water requires more effort as the water is denser than the air. This can help one burn extra calories. Water walking can burn up to 460 calories an hour, as per experts.
An effective workout for people with joint issues
Walking on water uses the body’s natural buoyancy, which makes movements less stressful on joints. This can help people with arthritis lose weight and those with joint or muscle injuries recover. Water can help relieve joint stress.
Heart health
Water walking is an amazing workout for your heart too as it can help raise heart rate apart from lowering your blood pressure. It also reduces stress in general which is a risk factor for heart ailments.
Improves muscle health
When you walk in water, it provides you greater resistance than air, which means you get to work on your muscles and make them stronger. It also improves your flexibility and can help you build muscles faster than ground walking.
Better brain health
Walking in water helps improve neural connections and stimulate sensory receptors which can boost brain health. You can also try walking faster in water to make the exercise more challenging or do water jogging.
In all walking in water or aquatic workouts can be an easy and effective way to build muscles, beat stress, lose weight, relieve joint pains, reduce blood pressure and improve heart health.