water exercise Archives

The Main Ingredient

‘As you spend your days creating structures that contain and control water,’ wrote Brian Van Bower to open his January 2003 Aqua Culture column, ‘it’s easy to lose sight of the water itself. Yes, we’re conscious of the fact that we have to filter, treat and sometimes heat it, but in its role as the defining feature in our products, water is so familiar a participant that in some ways it almost becomes invisible.’ ‘I’d like to heighten our general awareness by

Endless Pools Introduces SwimCross Systems

Endless Pools (Aston, PA) manufactures the SwimCross Exercise Model X500, a jetted swim spa with…

Ripples #20

Compiled and Written by Lenny GiteckRipples Asks: Who — or What — Really Killed The Donald’s Hair? Ripples was shocked by this recent revelation on the Web site cheezburger.com: “Donald Trump's hair found dead in

Increasing Access

The benefits of swimming and other forms of aquatic exercise are better defined and more widely known than ever before, notes Dr. Bruce Becker, one of the nation’s top researchers into all the good things that happen when people get in the water. But there are a number of obstacles that are keeping some of those who would benefit from actually getting in the water to help themselves, he adds – a surmountable set of issues he explores here. It seems obvious enough. To reap the physical and psychological benefits of swimming and other forms of aquatic exercise and therapy, a person must first get into the water. Experience shows, however, that this initial step is often not

A Place to Heal: William Rowley’s Platinum Standard Project

In December 2004, WaterShapes introduced ‘The Platinum Standard,’ a registry of projects that embodies watershaping…

Exercising Sense

If there's one thing we all know without any question, it's that nobody is getting any younger. In fact, if you read any of the demographic information available these days about the "graying" of the Baby Boom generation, it's clear that our entire country is becoming older en masse. During the past year, I've experienced for myself what this means to us in the watershaping trades in the form of a dramatic uptick in the number of clients, most of them elderly, who have approached our firm looking for swimming pools primarily for the purpose of aquatic aerobics and other forms of water exercise. For the most part, these prospects and clients have made it clear they would not otherwise be interested in purchasing a pool: They need it, they say, to pursue therapy for a range of physical conditions and ailments. With that trend in mind (and anticipating the needs of my own aging frame as well), I decided to

As architects and environmental artists, Suzanne and Ron Dirsmith have always taken pride in creating spaces that nurture the spirit, mind and body. In one recent project, however, they went several steps beyond that in setting up a watershape for a special child who uses water exercise to gain strength, flexibility and freedom. Here’s a look at how they accommodated his needs – and learned a great deal about the healing power of water in the process.

Helping Hands

The notion that water can be used to treat physical problems and conditions is not new. In fact, when you study the history of watershaping and aquatic design, one of the first things you learn is that the ancient Romans might actually have had a better grip on the healing and nurturing powers of water than we ever will. In our own work in designing and installing environments that nurture the spirit and invigorate the body, we pursue that Roman heritage as best we can - and always keep water in mind as a key component. The project described in this article stands as one our most dramatic explorations of the curative power of water to date. The pool, spa and