Water-based fitness classes are a really great way to help you lose weight and increase your wellness and wellbeing. These exercises are fun and burn lots of calories, and can be done whatever the weather – in an outdoor pool on a hot summer’s day or in an indoor heated pool in the depth of winter.
When you take exercise in water, your body has to work harder than ever, as it is working against the resistance of the water. This means that you burn more calories than you would on dry land. Muscles are toned and fat is burned, as you use all of your muscle groups at the same time – your arms, your legs and your core.
Exercise that is carried out in water is also low impact, meaning that it does not put as much stress and strain on the body as exercising on dry land. It also increases your flexibility and balance, allowing you to perform a range of movements with various different ranges of motion. Best of all, when you do water-based exercises, you have so much fun that you don’t even realise that you are exercising.
Water-based activities are excellent for burning calories, but the actual number of calories that you burn will be dependent on how much you weigh. For the purposes of this article, however, we’ve worked on the assumption that you are an average body weight of 154 pounds (70 kilograms). If you weight more than this, you will burn more, and if you weigh less you will burn less.
For canoeing you will burn 490 calories per hour, diving will see you shed around 210 calories per hour, kayaking burns about 350 calories per hour, paddle boating burns an impressive 280 calories per hour, power boating burns around 175 calories per hour, sailing burns around 350 calories per hour and scuba diving will burn around 490 calories per hour.