The Healing Properties of Water
Reasons to Consider Water Exercise Therapy as a Healing Alternative
Water activities are an excellent way to get fit and get well. The unique physical properties of water provide an ideal healing environment for exercise and therapy and can have several advantages over land-based programs.
Some of the Advantages of Aquatic Therapy (Hydrotherapy or Water Therapy)
You will find, for example, that the natural buoyancy of water reduces weight-bearing stress. This allows you greater ease of movement with less strain on your bones, joints, and muscles. The increased density of water creates even and fluid resistance in all directions, comfortably toning and strengthening your muscles while allowing you to move with greater balance and efficiency.
All of these properties of water work together to create a healing environment in which to move:
The following topics will further explain how each of these properties work, and the physical benefits they can produce when you follow a program of hydrotherapy.
Why We Can Float in Water? How Fat and Muscle Affect the Ability to Float?
Strengthen Your Core, Improve Your Posture, and Relax...with a Little Turbulence
While the word “turbulence” may not bring to mind images of relaxation, that is exactly the effect that this property of water has on your muscles. Currents and eddies in the water massage and stimulate your skin, promoting circulation and relaxation.
What are Resistance and Viscosity, and How Do They Affect Water Exercise?
Resistance actually occurs between the molecules of a liquid, effecting how a liquid flows. Viscosity can be thought of as a measure of a fluid's resistance to flow. Liquids of high viscosity, such as syrup, flow slowly. Liquids of a low viscosity flow fast, such as mercury. Water is 790 times more viscous, and provides twelve times the resistance than the air normal exercise is performed in. The density of water is approximately 1,000 times greater than air.
This Property of Water Can Ease Rehabilitation by Reducing the Effects of Gravity
Buoyancy is defined as the upward thrust acting in the opposite direction to the force of gravity. The more deeply immersed you are in water, the less you weigh; when immersed to hip height in water, you weigh only 50% of your weight on land. The buoyant property of water is used in rehabilitation therapy to assist in movement, as resistance to movement, and to support movement on the water’s surface.
Feeling Under Pressure During Your Hydrotherapy Sessions? This is a Good Thing.
Hydrostatic pressure is produced by the weight of a fluid, acts upon every body in the fluid, and is the same in all directions at a particular depth.
Getting into Warm Water can Have Several Benefits for Your Body
Thermal Aquatic Bodywork takes place when water temperature is 34.4ºC / 94F. The thermal properties of water assist healing. Your body's reaction to warm water causes the nerves at the surface of the skin to carry impulses deep into the body.
What physiological changes occur when your body is immersed in warm water?
What happens to the circulatory system, the pulmonary system, and the muscle-skeletal system?
-
Cardiac output increases by 32% (at rest) during neck immersion.
-
The total work of breathing increases by 60%, expiratory reserve volumes decrease by 75% during neck immersion.
- Muscle blood flow increases by 225% (at rest) during neck immersion.
Following a program of aquatic therapy can have some very positive effects on your body’s systems, and can enhance your mental well-being at the same time.
Why Aquatic Activities Are Much More Efficient And Healthy For You than Land Exercise...And What Are The Differences?
Aquatic Activities |
Land Activities |
||
| Minimal to no impact. | High impact, resulting in jarring to the joints. | ||
| Even if you are unable to stand on land, you are able to stand in the water. | Inability to stand limited to chair or bed type exercises. | ||
| Everyone is equal in the water. | Not everyone can keep up with land type classes. | ||
No limitations based on age, body size, sex, or health-related limitations. |
|||
Back to Top | Previous | Next Topic » Climatotherapy
