AQUAGYM STORY
Water-gym has now become a reality; everybody knows it but only few people know how and why water-gym was born.
Its originated years ago. The therapeutic effects of water have been appreciated since the times of the ancient Greeks and Romans, the Assyro-Babylonian as well as the Egyptians.
Water-gym began more recently as a result of many athletic exercises even though it is not a competitive activity.
It is difficult to establish who has been the first to come up with this sport but an intensive research has found out who has featured this activity with its connotation of health rather than of competition and has made it a true water discipline. This person first approached this activity for her personal need of movement (not for pure business) then she spread it out and taught it to other people. She is the actress
Eleonora
Vallone
,who after a serious accident, in 1984 has found in the water the solution to her physical and psychological problems. She has invented more than 2000 exercises now patented under the name of
GymSwim
and a special floating equipment "the triangle" and she has published several
Books
as well.
Then she has set up the first School, seated in Rome, to form gymswim teachers.
During the 90s the Americans showed they were tired of Jane Fonda's successful aerobics, a sport that had improved social life with people of different ages and people who had never practised any sport. Perhaps they practised it for fun or to lose weight, for vanity and without any competitive aim (unlike all the other sports of that time). As time passed this activity showed its first negative effects such as vertebral compression, diseases of the disc, hernias, circulation, cartilage and bone disorders, sprains, tachycardia and so on. That was a result of the high impact of the exercises as well as the lack of preparation of people.
Therefore the American doctors and teachers (and afterwards the Brazilian and others) tried to find out a way to soften that impact: how? In the water, of course. But the water level should not overcome the navel so as to practice the same exercises as in an aerobics lesson and without being able to swim.
Aquagym
or Aquaerobic was then born, but it was necessary to find swimming pools with a low water level. At first people practised it in the children swimming pools also using their play tool: the coloured floating pipe. Afterwards appropriate swimming pools were built having different depths and equipment and lots of people joined in.
It is now important to point out the differences between these two main activities: Gymswim was born in the water (it includes, indeed, several exercises, divided into 6 levels, that can be practised where water is deep or even underwater, besides the aerobic exercises practised in the low water or better where it reaches up the chest with the arms almost always under water), you can learn to swim and practice it with a variety of music. It also gives you a great sensation of freedom because the only equipment you have is the TRIANGLE.
Aquagym, instead, was born on the ground (you practice aerobic exercises standing in the low water with your arms outside); you can do it also without being able to swim, the rhythm is frantic and the volume of the music high. There is a great variety of equipment but they are easy to use.
Nowadays at the beginning of the year 2000, 15 years after this activity was born, Aquagym is developing all over the world precisely because the impact of the exercises is softened by the water thus allowing also the training and preparation of other sports. Therefore it can be practised also by athletes - champions or beginners of every age - with a preventive or therapeutic target.
The water models on our body and we control the intensity of the movement according to what we want to obtain and unlike other sports there are no contra-indications.
Now there are several schools of water-gym in every part of the world with different names:
Gymnuoto, Gymswim, GymVasca, Aquagym, Aquaerobic, Aquafitness, Aquastep, Aqua Building, GymDiving, MareGym, GymTantra, AquaDance, Water Dance, Hydro-Step, Hydroaerobic, Waterwalking, Acqua-Stretching, Aqua-Chi, Aqua-Training, Aquatic-Therapy, Scubagym, Acquatic Kickboxing, Acquatic soccer, Acquatic samba, Watsu, Aquaspinning, AquaticGym, Aquaboxe, Aquadinamic, Waterpower, Aquajocks, Aquatonic, Aquasenior, AquaDeep, AquaDecathlon, Aquaflap, Aquasoma, Aquabike, LatinoSplash and others.
If any of you knows a new technique of water-gym, teaches or practices it, has a water-gym Centre please contact us so that we can add its name (and a link) to our multilanguage water web site and create the AQUAGYM PORTAL as a point of reference for all those who love water and want to discover its benefits and where to practice water-gym!
Have a good floating!!!
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