Trying Some New Arthritis Exercise

You've already heard about my arthritic knees ad nauseam. You know I'm trying to delay knee replacement surgery as long as possible. You know I have had one shoulder replaced already - a combination of childhood injury (trying to ride a cow) and arthritis. So what's left? The hips.
For the past week my right hip has been giving me fits. I've even considered going to a chiropractor because it feels like my hip is 'out'. But I haven't injured it or done anything to it, so maybe it is more arthritis showing up?

I've known for a long time that exercising in a pool is one of the best ways to work out when troubled by arthritis. It is gentler on the joints and the water gives you the benefits of resistance training. So Tuesday I finally decided to try the Arthritis Aqua class offered at the Y. It genuinely was a good, mildly strenuous workout for the whole body. Bonus: I really liked the instructor.

But how would I feel the next day? By Tuesday afternoon I could already tell I'd done more than usual. I wondered if I would wake up in the night with leg cramps - a common occurrence for me when I do something different.

Wednesday morning I woke up feeling pretty good. No leg cramps in the night - well, one slight foot cramp. I figured if I was going to be doing two days in the pool (class is on Tuesdays & Thursdays) I'd better add another day of walking on the treadmill, so I went to the Y yesterday - my usual day off.

Today it was back for the second pool exercise experience. Again, a good work out. There were about twice as many people today as there were on Tuesday. It was actually a little crowded. I am planning on continuing with these classes.

I didn't get a picture of our class, but here's one of the class following ours: Aqua Interval. It is a bit more strenuous. I did notice some of the ones in Arthritis Aqua stayed for this class, too. There's also Aqua Power, Aqua Boot Camp, Wet-N-Fit, Aqua Zumba, Early Bird Aqua and Aquacise. Who knows, maybe I will try some of these other classes in the future.

The Y was one of the contributing factors in our retiring to Creston instead of our home town. Much as I complain about having to go to the Y, I'm really grateful for its closeness and all the classes on offer.