Stretching for an Aqua Fitness Workout

Video Transcript

"In this segment we're going to talk about the most crucial part about working out; that's stretching out your muscles, before and after. It's so important you do so so that you're not injuring yourself. Working out in the pool may seem like it's no big deal but it's just as much strain on all of your muscles as working out outside on all of your other equipment. So we want to start with the muscles that we're really going to focus on today. Which you may change up your workouts for more where you get real comfortable but today we're really going to focus on our shoulders, the backs of our arms, our quads, our glutes, our hamstrings. So let's start working all those out. We're first just going to start with an easy stretch pulling the arm across the chest, pressing all the way outward and holding till 5; 4 3 2 1. Release your arm to let the blood flow back into your fingers and start again with the other arm. Stretch all the way out. 5 4 3 2 1. We really want to make sure that those shoulders are loose because we're going to be working them a lot today. So just reach up above your head and push back to work on the triceps and the shoulders. You can see from the side; we're going to be doing this. Let those arms relax back down and press up again. You should feel a really good stretch all the way through here and 5 again. Back down and let's be sure we focus on our quads as well. We're going to stretch out the front end of our quad. 5 4 3 2 1. Pull up so that we really pull on that hip flexor. Turn and do the same on the other side. 5 4 3 2 1. Okay, that should really get you started. If you feel like anything else needs to be shaken out before hand, now you can stretch in or out of the pool, it doesn't matter either way. Today it's a little chilly in Florida so I'm going to stretch outside. But it doesn't matter because we've just warmed up in the pool. So if you feel like staying in the pool and not getting out, it's no big deal, either way you're still stretching your muscles."