How To Help Athletes Start The Aquatic Therapy Process
Starting the Aquatic Therapy Process
Before starting the aquatic therapy process, ensure patients are calm and answer any lingering questions they may have.
When working in the pool, make sure athletes start with the proper stance.
The water’s buoyancy may make some patients and trainers take risks they shouldn’t, or start too aggressively. Encourage patients to start by standing in the water and getting used to it.
Whether for rehab, or for performance conditioning, always makes certain that patients’ feet are apart and that they are standing in a good, balanced stance before starting.
A HydroWorx pool is smaller than a normal pool. This means that when a patient pushes the water to the side or forward, it’s going to bounce back.
“Start right, you’ll be right.”
Murphy Grant of Grant Sports & Performance Therapy
Starts slowly and patiently. Once the patient is comfortable enough in the pool to be able to pull, breathe and talk at the same time, then they can move on to some other exercises.
Top Core Exercises For Aquatic Therapy
- A few core exercises for both recovering athletes and for athletes improving their performance include:
- Isomatic Crunches (using a SMALL Swiss ball)
- Low ab crunches (using the safety bars with the HydroWorx pool)
- Box patterns
- Figure 8 patterns
- The wood chop (using flat hand resistance at first, then more resistance later on.)
The Main Takeaway: Just Move Water
Remember the core fundamental to just move water. It will resist. By pushing against the water, and having the water bounce back, strength will increase and patients will begin to regain and retain their balance in a safe environment.
Working with HydroWorx pools and aquatic therapy, means that, especially with injuries, athletes and trainers can be super aggressive, super efficient and safe at the same time.
Additional Resources
A series of videos in the HydroWorx video library shows Murphy Grant giving an introduction to core essentials, then moving into lower body and upper body workouts:
Murphy Grant’s Core Essentials
Murphy Grant’s Lower Body Essentials
Murphy Grant’s Upper Body Essentials