Slide show: Aquatic exercises
Woman water walking with hand webs
Previous Next 1 of 6 Aquatic exercises

Aquatic exercise is a low-impact activity that takes the pressure off your bones, joints and muscles. Water also offers natural resistance, which can help strengthen your muscles.

Aquatic exercise can also have several health benefits, such as improved heart health, reduced stress, and improved muscular endurance and strength. Exercising in the water can be a great way to include physical activity into your life. It may also be a beneficial way for older adults to stay active. You can even do aquatic exercise if you don't know how to swim. Aquatic exercise can also improve joint use and lessen pain if you have osteoarthritis.

You might start with water walking. In water that's about waist-high, walk across the pool swinging your arms as you do when walking on land. Avoid walking on your tiptoes, and keep your back straight. Tighten your abdominal muscles to avoid leaning too far forward or to the side.

To increase resistance as your hands and arms move through the water, wear hand webs or other resistance devices. Water shoes can help you maintain traction on the bottom of the pool.

From Mayo Clinic to your inbox

Sign up for free, and stay up to date on research advancements, health tips and current health topics, like COVID-19, plus expertise on managing health. Click here for an email preview.

To provide you with the most relevant and helpful information, and understand which information is beneficial, we may combine your email and website usage information with other information we have about you. If you are a Mayo Clinic patient, this could include protected health information. If we combine this information with your protected health information, we will treat all of that information as protected health information and will only use or disclose that information as set forth in our notice of privacy practices. You may opt-out of email communications at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the e-mail.

See more Multimedia Nov. 20, 2021