Benefits of Using a Swimming Treadmill

Walking or running on an underwater treadmill replicates on-land workouts but reduces the impact on muscles, ligaments and joints. For athletes bouncing back from injury, walking on an aquatic treadmill allows them to ramp up their mileage without putting too much stress on their bodies.

Aquatic treadmills are also used in physical therapy and retirement communities for gait training. This type of exercise helps patients build strength and improves their overall mobility.

Low Impact Exercise

Whether you’re an elite athlete looking to boost your weekly training or someone recovering from injury, low impact exercise is vital for anyone wanting to stay fit or bounce back from surgery or illness. Adding water treadmill exercise to your routine can help reduce the pressure, strain and shock on your joints and muscles while providing a full cardiovascular and strength workout.

If you’re concerned about how to achieve a great cardio workout without the impact, try using an underwater treadmill to get your heart rate up through walking or aqua jogging. Depending on the intensity of your workout and the level of resistance, you can achieve your target heart rate and even elevate it into the moderate zone.

In addition to reducing the stress on your joints, low impact exercises can reduce cortisol levels, helping you feel less stressed and anxious. This helps you to better stick with your workouts and reach your health goals. TAMU research found that aquatic treadmill therapy was also more effective than traditional land-based exercise in lowering systolic and diastolic blood pressure.

Increased Cardiovascular Endurance

Cardiovascular endurance is the ability of your heart, lungs and blood vessels to supply oxygen during whole-body exercise for extended periods. It’s the key to a long, healthy life, and it’s something you can build with a little practice.

Running is one of the best exercises for cardiovascular endurance, but it can be hard on knees and joints – especially if you’re carrying extra weight or recovering from injuries. An underwater treadmill enables you to get the same aerobic and fat-burning benefits of running without the pounding on your bones, muscles and ligaments.

You can control the intensity of your workout by adjusting your treadmill speed from a gentle walk to an invigorating run and by increasing the swim current for heightened resistance against core, leg and upper body muscles. A recent TAMU study also showed that aquatic treadmill physical therapy offers superior cardiovascular benefits to on-ground workouts, including reductions in exercise systolic blood pressure and resting diastolic blood pressure. This makes it easier for people with hypertension to get the exercise they need.

Increased Muscle Strength

When you exercise on an underwater treadmill, your muscles and joints experience less stress. That allows your swimming treadmill body to develop new muscle fibers that increase strength and stamina. It also helps your ligaments and tendons to strengthen, which reduces the strain on the bones and cartilage that occur during normal activities of daily living.

Studies have found that gait training in water improves balance and stability, which can significantly decrease the number of falls and accidents for older adults. This is because anti-gravity treadmill therapy allows you to practice proper biomechanics that carry over into land movements.

The integrated treadmill in our PoolEx pool models is adjustable, so you can move from a gentle walk to an invigorating run. You can even swimming treadmill increase your workout intensity by running against the powerful SwimEx current for a core and leg workout.

Whether you’re recovering from injury or trying to stay healthy, the benefits of walking and running on an underwater treadmill are huge. It’s the best way to achieve a full cardiovascular workout without the high joint impact of walking and running on land.

Relieves Joint Pain

Whether your clients are looking to stay healthy, rehabilitate an injury or train for a marathon, walking and running on an underwater treadmill will deliver powerful aerobic and cardiovascular benefits without the heavy pounding of land-based workouts. This buoyancy and resistance increases the intensity of a workout, but it also reduces the stress on joints and lower body muscles.

The natural hydrostatic pressure of water reduces the load on your body by reducing waist and chest-height weight by up to 75 percent. This eliminates the impact force on your knee and other affected joints so you can perform exercises without pain.

Increases Flexibility: Since patients bear as little as 20% of their body weight while exercising on the underwater treadmill, it relieves joint stress and promotes flexibility. Additionally, a study by Texas A&M found that combined strength training and aquatic treadmill workouts led to greater success in muscle mass building than performing those activities alone or with a regular land-based treadmill.

In addition to improving range of motion and boosting strength, the underwater treadmill helps your clients build confidence by practicing gait training in a supportive environment. As a result, they can overcome fear of falling, which is a significant risk for seniors.

Recovery Aid

For patients that suffer from knee, hip, back or other joint problems, the use of a swimming treadmill can allow them to exercise longer and more frequently than if they were on land. This is because the buoyancy of the water reduces the pressure on the joints, making them less prone to injury and reducing pain while still providing a workout that increases muscle strength and cardiovascular endurance.

In addition to this, the treadmill’s ability to support a dog or person at waist-height water means that a patient’s body weight is reduced by up to 75 percent. This allows the patient to engage in exercise without stressing their joints, even if they have had surgery in the past.

Additionally, a recent study by TAMU found that patients who alternate underwater treadmill exercises with on-land strength training have a greater increase in lean body mass than those who only engage in the two activities separately. This is especially beneficial for patients that have been injured or are recovering from surgery. The underwater treadmill can help them build up their strength and endurance before allowing them to return to full on-land activity.