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If you are recovering from injury, new to exercise, want a new way to get a workout, consider water as a great alternative to traditional cardiovascular exercise. Water conditioning has no impact and cushions your entire body as you exercise so it will prevent you from injuring yourself. You’ll find you have a much faster recovery and less joint aches and pains compared to traditional methods of cardio. On top of this it’s a great way to add some fun while keeping active.

Water running is a excellent alternative to ground running. There is less stress to the joints while in the water so you may be able to put in a little more effort. If you find that you need a challenge you can add resistance in the form or ankle and wrist weights. Interval training is best when doing water running. Aim to add 10 sets of sprinting for one to two minutes and switch to a light job. Break for approximately 30 to 60 seconds in between each sprinting set and work your way up to more sets. The alternate to intervals is to do a 5 to 10 minute warm up and then run continuously at about %70 of your max heart rate for 10 minutes and then a cool down for 5 minutes. With this type of training you want to work your way up to the time of continuous running you can keep doing without your heart rate getting too high.

The other work out you can try is just doing laps to keep it simple. If you have never attempted to do laps before start with just one lap and stop for a minute and continue this for 20 to 30 minutes. Decrease the amount of break time you need in between laps gradually.

After a few weeks of doing this you should start to notice an improvement. If you have problems swimming laps or have an arm injury and can’t complete strokes with your arms you can use a kick board to hold onto. Alternatively, if you have problems with your legs you can keep your legs relatively still and use an alternate stroke to pull yourself along.

Remember that your heart will beat approximately 10 beats per minute slower than on the ground so adjust your effort accordingly. Having a heart rate monitor that is water resistant is easier than stopping to count. The bottom line is that working out in the water is a great conditioning tool, one which we could all incorporate into our routines.