swimming

Ripples #25
Compiled and Written by Lenny Giteck Oprah Winfrey Proves It’s Never Too Late to Learn How to SwimIt seems there is not much Oprah Winfrey can’t do. The many terms that describe her include
The Controversial Aquatics Venue
The distinctive London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympic Games will seat 17,500 spectators and boast two 50-meter swimming pools, one 25-meter diving pool and various training facilities. Competitions slated to take place in the center are
2011/2.2, February 23 — Green Building, Tuning Water’s Sounds, Japanese Gardens and more
February 23, 2011 WATERSHAPES.COM FEATURE ARTICLE The New Green Building Code Concrete expert William D.…
Ripples #11
Compiled and written by Lenny Giteck Swimming Pools a FocusAt Coppola Winery Renowned movie director, producer and screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola is blazing new trails in the winery business by including two swimming pools and other family entertainment features in his
High-Rise Performance
There’s no denying the difficulty of building a high-quality inground pool, but the welcome fact is that the earth can conceal a range of little imperfections, from small leaks to minor structural defects. When you build a pool or some other watershape above grade as an integral component of a multi-story building, however, everything you do is magnified because the work is always exposed.  Essentially, you lose the margin for error that might be possible with an inground installation. This past spring, work was completed on two high-rise watershapes our firm engineered as part of L.A. Live, a multi-purpose, entertainment-oriented complex situated near the Staples Center and the Los Angeles Convention Center in downtown Los Angeles.  The pool/spa combinations were placed on the fourth and twenty-sixth floors, and although they have simple rectangular forms, they represent the absolute
Plain Silly
I have my opinions – some of them quite strong – but I’m also what I would consider to be a tolerant, open-minded guy:  I weigh a broad spectrum of ideas in forming my perspectives, and I try my best to judge people by their thoughts, actions and merits. Every once in a while, however, my reserves of patience get pressed to the limit.  When that happens, I believe it’s valid and useful to stand up and call things as I see them.   Let me cut to the chase:  On February 25, 2009, The New York Times ran a piece in the paper’s Home & Garden section by
Swimming to Longevity
Delivering the keynote address to the World Aquatic Health Conference in September 2008, Dr. Steven N. Blair asked a simple question:  Does swimming reduce your risk of dying?  As he stressed then and repeats in detail here, the answer is a resounding yes.  Indeed, the findings he offers stand among the most compelling reasons ever offered to promote swimming and other forms of aquatic exercise to the general public.   Medical science has long seen exercise as a crucial part of a healthy lifestyle.  In fact, there’s an enormous amount of evidence about its health benefits – so much that the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services recently stepped up with its first-ever guidelines for physical activity. Lots of individuals, organizations and other entities have proclaimed the positive outcomes of exercise through the years, but never before had the U.S. government published an official set of guidelines. These government recommendations were largely the result of
Breathing in Water
I’m sure many of you have noticed by now that we’ve been devoting some of WaterShapes’ pages to articles that in one way or another shine a light on the health benefits of swimming and other forms of aquatic activity.  We’ve done so in the firm belief that the information is important and needs to be
Swimming to Wellness
Most people know that swimming is a great form of exercise, but far fewer seem aware that getting in the water can mean the difference between a life of disability and one of well being for those who live with chronic injuries and illnesses.  In this special feature, Barbara Goldstein describes how a daily swimming regimen has enabled her to stay fit and able in mind, body and spirit while keeping symptoms of three serious medical conditions at bay.   When I was a child, I read a biography of Theodore Roosevelt and discovered that we had asthma in common.  In my case, doctors treated the condition with medications, but Roosevelt had lived in a time long before the era of modern medicine, and I was interested to learn that he kept his condition under control by swimming regularly.  About the time I turned 40, we had a pool installed at our home.  Even with
Healing Waters
In our business, when we talk about people with disabilities, we always put people first:  We speak of "people with brain injuries," for instance, or "people with arthritis" or "people with spinal injuries."  That's an important distinction, because the language informs the entire mindset needed to help them improve their situations in the most effective ways.   For starters, this "people-first" approach helps us avoid misleading generalizations:  Often, we find that two people with nominally similar conditions or disabilities will have significantly different needs and that the methods used to treat each may prove to be significantly different as well.  Everything we do at the Brown Center, in other words, must be based on the individual's own