the lifeguard encouraged me to water aerobics yesterday

You are right... you get out what you put in... a lot of the water aerobic folks at our pool do bust their ass. A couple of weeks ago the regular water aerobics teacher, who happens to be a nurse practictioner, was going to be away at a conference all week. I was asked to fill in for her. I started the Tuesday class with the usual warm up/stretch stuff then moved into the aerobic exercises and, started talking to the class about how most lap swimmers feel about water aerobics. To my surprise that seemed to motivate them... I pushed them harder than the regular teacher ever pushed when I do the class and I watched the pace clock to make sure we kept our heart rate up for 20 minutes. I even saw some faces getting red and that scared me a little bit. Afterwards they thanked me for a good class. On Thursday, the class was somewhat smaller... hummmm I wonder... maybe Shakey is right in some cases. to each his own, Lainey

Laineybug - I bet the post water aerobics stampede to the Shoneys' breakfast buffet was unprecedented after you put them through a real workout. Aren't you supposed to have a red face after a workout?

LOL... yeah I guess you are suppose to have a red face, but I didn't want someone to have a heart attack on me! For the most part everyone was able to keep up nicely; I'd see them start to slow down a little so I would slow down for a little bit and then speed back up and they were able to do that; there were a few that I would look at and tell them to do the exercise 1/2 time and when they dropped down to that level they could go without having to stop. I also saw some grimices like something hurt and I advised them not to try to be so extreme in the movements if it hurt. This class was from 5:30 to 6:15 PM... most of the folks (men and women) just paddled around and gossiped after the class... I hung out for a little bit too so they couldn't talk about me--LOL... Then a workout buddy of mine showed up and I did my time in the lap lanes. It was an interesting experience.

Someone should develop an XTREME! Water Aerobics class where a drill instructor screams at the people like they do in spinning classes: "PADDLE! PADDLE! PADDLE! "NOODLE! NOODLE! NOODLE! "COME ON LADIES! DON'T GIVE UP NOW! "YOU! YES, YOU! DON'T YOU STOP! GIVE ME MORE! "AIN'T NO 'FLASHDANCE WHAT A FEELING' PLAYIN' IN THIS CLASS! "PADDLE! PADDLE! PADDLE! "FEEL THE BURN! YOU FEEL IT? LET IT HURT GOOD!" Set that class up right before the regular class, so that the floaters see some real work being done when they show up for class. Man I'd love to see the looks on their faces when they walked in to see THAT for the first time.:D

"Who, ME???" I was onced invited to do water aeorbics. It reminded me of the first time a check-out girl called me, "sir." Needless to say I declined. I then did 6 x 200 flies to prove myself (really).

Where do you find the noodle class? When I was 42 and in WSI class we (and all those 17 yr old classmates) had to attend a senior citizen water aerobics class. They spent at least 15 minutes with their arms out of the water doing gyrations holding milk jugs half full of water after that spent a few minutes in the deeper end doing "wallies"--at least 10 consecutive of them. For those who doen't know what wallies are--they are done at the wall in water where you cannot touch and you boost yourself out of the pool using your arms. The fun part was part of the cool down--they all got into a circle and walked around until the water was swirling like and eddy then abruptly turned around and walked against the current. Even the 17 year old high school swimmers were exhausted at the end of that hour class.

Janis, I saw a water aerobics class like that at the Toronto Y a few years ago. They actually made the water foam. Those people were really working, unlike the water exercise classes in my home pool. I remember asking what they were doing and how amazed I was when I was told that it was a water aerobics class. I believe the idea of water aerobics was thought up by Jane Katz, a masters swimmer, who had a real workout in mind - a workout where your heart rate got into the aerobic training zone.

I have never seen a class like Janis described, although it makes sense that such a thing would exist. It seems that most of the classes out there, however, are simply scams to trick people into paying to think they're exercising. "Wow! What a great workout! You don't have to sweat, and there's none of that pesky hard work you have to do in other workouts! Water aerobics is for me!" Meanwhile the instructor is getting paid, which is all that really matters in that type of class anyway.

No there are real workouts, out there... I find the deep water aerobics more demanding than those in the shallow end. Most of the time I will 'warm down' after my laps with the shallow water aerobics. Sometimes, when I don't have enough time to swim a whole workout I will just do a class. On the rare occasions that I do the class instead of swim my laps I put weights on my ankles and wrists. That helps to increase the intensity of the workout. Some of the others in the aerobics class have the webbed resistance gloves that swimmers use, and some will get paddles. I've seen advertisements for a step that can be put on the bottom of the pool for water step aerobics... I would like to see what that is like. Water aerobics can be aerobic, like I said before, you get out of it what you put into it. Lainey