The aqua advantage

Instructor Donna Goguen leads the class from the pool deck. (Nick Pearce Photo)

Aquafit is one of the longest running programs at Dalplex and has a cadre of enthusiasts to prove it.

Judith Inglis has been attending aquafit classes in the pool for about 15 years. She says that you can go into the class feeling low and come out of it feeling alive again. “It’s like being 66 and feeling like I’m 26,” she says with a laugh.

She took aquafit for a test drive when she quit smoking all those years ago. “I figured I needed to exercise my mind, plus my body. So I started and never stopped.”

If you think 15 years is a long time to be attending an exercise class, try 27 years. Eighty-two-year-old Betty Lord has been attending aquafit classes since she was 55. She notes you don’t even need to be able to swim to take the class, since there is a choice of lessons in deep water—participants wear thick, pool noodle-like belts—or in shallow water where you can touch bottom.

Aquafit instructor Donna Goguen is an enthusiastic advocate of the low-impact, head-to-toe exercise. It’s good for virtually anybody, whether young or old, fit or less fit, swimmers or non-swimmers. It’s a good way to bounce back from injury. But athletes use it too in cross training. 

“Aquafit has a lot of benefits and it is accessible to a very broad segment of the population,” says Ms. Goguen.

People of many different ages take in the class. (Nick Pearce Photo)

Another senior, Gay Dennis, 73, began taking aquafit about 15 years ago. She started because she needed to get some exercise and heard good things about the class. “It’s a good way of getting rid of tension and stress. And I suppose the social aspect of it comes into it too.”

Aquafit classes take place Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at noon. Running 45 minutes, the classes are easy to squeeze in over lunchtime.

On a recent Wednesday, this “youngtimer” took in one of Ms. Goguen classes in shallow water.

What can I say? It’s fun. Beginning the class to some funky beats, participants march in the water, swinging their arms forward and back to the music to warm up. Ms. Goguen enthusiastically coaches from the pool deck.

She is detailed with her instructions, telling the women what muscles they are working and where on their bodies they should be feeling the workout. The interesting thing about working out in water is that it provides resistance in multiple directions. Movement in any side-to-side or forward-backward direction meets equal resistance so opposing muscle groups work equally. As a result, you burn more calories when exercising in water compared to exercising on land.

“You’ll be so happy with me in the spring!” she shouts over the music during a particularly intense series of exercises. She’s answered by a sprinkling of laughs and smiles.

The most satisfying aspect of teaching aquafit at Dalplex is seeing participants come back week after week, year after year, says Ms. Goegen, 52.

“For an instructor, that is so important because people sometimes start up a fitness program and don’t really last,” she explains. “When you realize the consistency that people come to these aqua fitness programs and how committed they are, that’s what impresses me.”

LINK: Department of Athletics and Recreational Services