Aquatic Exercise and Fitness with Endless Pools Swim Spas

Lois Henry

People like Lois and Dennis Henry, of Florida remind us that Endless Pool owners are a constant, dynamic source of innovation, not to mention promotion, for the product. Having installed their unit a little more than a year ago, both use it daily, adapting their workouts to meet specific conditioning needs and increasing fitness levels.

Lois, 64, a former dance choreographer and instructor, as well as an aquatic exercise therapist, is especially inventive when it comes to her routine. She alternates one day of swimming – 750 strokes each of crawl and breaststroke, non-stop, against the motor-driven current – with a 45-minute exercise program of her own devise the following day.

In addition to walking against the current using flotation devices, Lois works the legs by swinging them against the resistance while bracing from a PVC pipe – she calls it her “ballet bar” -- suspended across the width of the pool. She engages the abdominal muscles by performing 50 underwater "crunches,” bracketing her hands around the motor mount and using the current for added resistance. Her latest, pilates-like supplement to the program entails standing on the step next to the Endless Pool motor while working the biceps by slowly pulling herself back and forth against the current. Reversing her grip, she does the same for the triceps.

Dennis’s physician recommended walking as a means to building endurance after liver transplant surgery three years ago. But Dennis, now 65, found that he much preferred the no-impact exertion of swimming in the Endless Pool, which the Henrys keep at 90º. He is now up to 25 minutes of doing the crawl, and his goal is to increase the daily workout to two sessions of 30 minutes apiece.

“Apart from the way we feel,” says Lois, “every doctor we’ve talked to ever since has said that swimming is just the greatest for both of us.”

Also typical of many Endless Pool aficionados, they have found that it has become a focus of family life, particularly when the grandchildren come to visit. An outdoor, screened-in enclosure that is comfortable during all but the most uncharacteristic Florida cold spells, it is “in use” even when nobody’s swimming.

“We love it, and we’re always congregated around the pool,” notes Lois.

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