Hydrotherapy/ Deep Water Running Again!

Since Covid started, we have not been able to bring our patients to the pool for hydrotherapy or aqua-based rehabilitation. 

The public pool we were using is only opened for lap swimming now. We are very grateful to The Ripple Club. It was with their help that we got access to a pool for our post-op patients today.

They are all surrendering....

This is not a typical hydrotherapy session in a shallow pool like what hospitals may have. Those are often indoor sessions in waist or chest deep, warm water. Range of motion exercises and light strengthening exercises are normally done then.

For our sessions, the pool is usually 1.8 metres deep. The patients use an aqua running belt to keep them afloat.

One patient had her hip labrum repaired recently while another (a triathlete) had an OCD bone fragment removed surgically. I often include aqua running techniques (or deep water running) to produce a training effect for them since they definitely cannot run on land yet. 

If done correctly, the arms, shoulders, lower limbs and abdominal muscles are involved. For those who cannot take too much impact, this is a very good alternative since water is 773 times more resistant than air. The harder you move your arms or legs, the more drag force or resistance you encounter.

Sculling with aqua belts off

This is a very useful session for rehabilitation work and training for athletes and patients. It allows injured athletes or post operative patients to recover quicker and allows others to undertake higher intensity (water based) training, with lower incidence of injury. 

It will not do the aqua training technique justice for me to describe how you do it in just a few short sentences, please contact us if you need more information on this.

References

Davidson, K (2000). Deep Water Running Training Improve V02 max in Untrained Women. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 14 (2) 191-195

Dowzer, CN and Reilly, T (1998). Deep Water Running. Sports Exercise and Injury. 4: 56-61

A big thank you to Alicia and Yannick from The Ripple Club for letting our patients try their water bikes.

*Thanks to Edmund Miranda from The Ripple Club for taking the pictures too.