If you are like me, a swimming pool owner, you probably spend more time working on it than swimming in it. My little Pop Tart and I started our entry into the swimming pool universe from scratch and often feel like scratching each other’s eyes out.
You hear of DIY—do it yourself. We are in the network DYI—do yourself in. We have learned through trial-and-error that this type of learning equates to trial-and-error-and-a-hell-of-a-lot-more-errors. I swear on a stack of chlorine tablets half our pina colada calories are consumed cleaning filters and vacuuming algae and yet-to-be-discovered lifeforms while half our mental energy is spent in lively discussions about pool maintenance.
We have some very productive discussions regarding pool maintenance. My soulie is precise and clear giving directions, especially those telling me where I can place the pool implements.
Speaking of sensitive parts of my anatomy, I incorporate swimming pool workouts as part of my daily summer resistance regimen. I don’t mean swimming or water aerobics although I have nothing against them except they are as boring as vacuuming the pool floor.
I use makeshift tools such as kayak oars and pickleball paddles. I do chest crossovers and a variety of wrist and forearm movements with the pickleball paddles. I do oblique twists and other movements with half a kayak paddle. The other half I lost years ago in a lake, fishing.
I even run backward, forward and sideways in the pool.
The key to progress is maximum effort. The harder you move, the more water resistance you make.
As with all new approaches to exercise, start out slowly for at least a week to ten days to initiate new and dormant muscle units, allowing them to adapt to new stresses and to help prevent injuries. At first, half-ass everything, just as I do with home projects.
It is much harder to create water drag for the legs than it is for the upper body, unless you know a way to clutch boat oars with your toes. I do know one way to create additional drag for your running exercises and that is to wear baggy clothes such as those gray sweatpants you wore in the gym class way back in the 60s, 1960s that is.
All of which brings back some crusty memories about a dude who never took his gym clothes and jock strap home to wash, but that is a story better told in a different venue.
