If you had a nickel for every time someone said "water is the best place for exercise", you would be a multi-millionaire.
But if water is so great, then why does Michael Phelps (World's Greatest Olympic Swimmer) go to the gym to build strength?
This answer has far more to do with learning how to build muscle in water then anything else.
After the engineers at bodybuildinginwater.com began tracing how the forces of many exercises move through and interact with the human body, they realized exactly why traditional water exercise methods and devices cannot build massive muscle strength. This also showed them how to use water to powerfully oppose body muscle contractions.
"Water is by far the best place to build muscle, for many reasons not yet taught. For us (exercise designers) its best features are that it naturally works like an advanced piece of fitness equipment, offering complete resistance in every possible direction. It also allows every muscle to be isolated with simple bionic enhancement devices like our Body Oars."
"To do this on land we first need to build a new contraption for each of over 100,000 directions, as all we need in water is a stabilizing method or device."
The reason why great swimming athletes like Michael Phelps use dry gyms to build strength is like wondering why you cannot build powerful chest muscles by riding a bicycle. They just have not been taught how to use water to directly hinder core muscle contractions, so they go to the gym.
"Swimming is actually not an exercise of muscles fighting resistance, it is a mode of transportation trying to avoid as much resistance as is possible."
He continued, "For a crude comparison, swimming is more like gently riding a bike that also has peddles for the hands, and water aerobics is a gentle version of land aerobics."
"Both are so inefficient at building muscle that the typical exercise bike will build far more muscle in the same amount of time, and that goes for also using any of the water fitness devices we found in health clubs and sporting goods stores."
However they also informed us that swimming and water aerobics are far better then most land exercises for cardio exercise, as well as for weight loss, because they can both provide target heart rates with far less compression damage. They also create more blood demand to feed muscles instead of for protecting joints.
Neither are stable enough for deep muscle exertion so they are useless for building massively powerful body muscles. That means when the exertion is applied, the body moves as the reaction to the resistance. For muscle to be deeply exercised in water, the resistance force must be trapped, it cannot have an escape route through other body motions, as it does with both swimming and water aerobics.
Without any other motion all the resistance is forced to dissipate by hindering muscle contractions, which is what rapidly builds massive muscle strength.
"With the right equipment it is possible to exert muscles 8-10 times deeper in water then on land. This is because bones are not nearly as vital in water, just look at a fish. A 2 pound bass can put up a whale of a fight, and they have 8-10 times less bone mass per pound then humans do."
Until Body Oars and bodybuildinginwater.com came around to take advantage of what water provides, the weight room had no counterpart in the pool.
The issue with almost all traditional water exercise devices found at most health club pools, is that they attach around the outer extremities or are just held in the hands.
Whenever the resistance for body muscles is loaded beyond the knees or elbows it can never allow the big core attached muscles to exert anywhere close to their full potential. This is simply because the knees and elbows fight far greater resistance, and they will always fail long before core muscles can be deeply strengthened.
Only about 10% of the population, athletes like Michael Phelps, are born with extra strong skeletal genetics, which you must have to build extra strong muscles by loading your bones to get at your muscles.
Almost all of these new muscle building in water exercises are far easier for virtually anyone to do, including people too old, obese or disabled to walk stand or swim to do. These people need only wear a life jacket to do many of these new exercises.
The missing muscle building aspect in modern water exercise is 'stability'.
Imagine trying to do a bench press while floating on your back. Without having a stable platform under you to prevent your body from moving down you will never be able to build extra powerful muscle. It is other body motions that release the muscle building resistance from swimming and water aerobics so the muscles do not get to fight much resistance.
Building muscle strength in water requires stability, and the engineers at bodybuildinginwater.com commonly apply four methods to achieve this in water.
They are isolation, isometric tension, artificial stabilization and traction.
"Even the most powerful athletes can become far stronger by bodybuilding in water, then in the gym. This is because dry weights drive all of the resistance forces through the skeleton to get at the muscles, so they 'plateau' once muscles strengthen to the point that their joints and disks will start failing before their muscles can again."
"By loading the big muscles directly combined with stabilization, muscles can be strengthened far beyond levels that overstress loaded joints and backs on land. Most of our methods will suddenly allow athletes to apply total, full range core muscle exertion without driving the forces through their bones."
Someone needs to inform Michael Phelps that Bodybuildinginwater.com currently has seven video classes posted on their home page (for free). They include about 40 new muscle building exercises that are extremely efficient at painlessly piling up muscle on anybody, from superstar athletes, too people to hampered to walk, stand or swim.
Do you think his trainers will go into denial?
Always have your doctor(s) evaluate any new exercises you intend to start before you do.
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