Instructor: Save Thyself!


I know I’m biased, but I strongly believe that CALA certified aquafitness professionals offer the best leadership in the industry. Our participants love being the centre of our attention. They respond with enthusiasm and delight when they are educated about what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how to best achieve results. Our leaders have to meet the highest standard in the industry in order to call ourselves “CALA Certified”. We are dedicated to ongoing education and are constantly seeking new ways to offer our participants the BEST.

“Yes, Yes!”, you’re saying, “so what’s your point?”

I am writing this article because I want you to be a great aquafitness leader well into your dotage. I want to see aged, wrinkled, happy, healthy CALA certified leaders motivating their aquafitness participants to excellence for years to come. At the present time, I feel that acute injuries, repetitive strain, and burnout are taking their toll. Routinely, I talk to leaders who are dealing with plantar fasciitis, low back pain, sore knees, neck pain and shoulder strain. Some have slipped and fallen on the deck with unfortunate, bone-breaking results. Others have the exhausted look of someone who has given the emotional and physical energy required to teach 12 to 20+ classes a week. Many express their concern over working very hard for many hours in a chlorine-filled, overheated, humid environment. These are real issues that need to be addressed if we are to enjoy longevity as aquafitness leaders.

We teach in a very unusual situation where our participants enjoy all the benefits the water has to offer, while we, the leaders on deck, work in an uncomfortable, potentially hazardous environment. The members of our classes have their joints cushioned by buoyancy, their muscle balance ensured by aquatic resistance, and their bodies cooled by temperate pool waters. Even if they do slip on the pool floor, they are caught and buoyed up by the dancing waves around them. Dehydration is an issue for the class, but don’t we constantly encourage them to bring their water bottles and sip regularly? Our participants are frequently reminded by us to focus on their muscles, their effort and their well-being.

Consider the contrast in working environments for the aqua instructor. As you read each ISSUE / SOLUTION listed below, mentally offer your own solution to the problem. See how your thoughts compare with the ideas offered below. If you have encountered a different problem, or have solved these issues a different / better way, please get in touch. Sharing useful strategies makes us all stronger!

Issue: As leaders, our focus is usually on our participants, it is NOT on ourselves (yet WE are at the greater risk of injury!)
Solution: Make your safety a priority with each and every class you teach. If you aren't healthy, you can't be there for them.

Issue: Dehydration is far greater for us. As the body tries to cool itself, it sends more and more useless sweat to the surface of our skin. The sweat cannot evaporate because the heat and humidity of the pool environment are too high.
Solution: Drink water while you teach, and be sure you are well-hydrated before and after you teach your class.


CALA teaching tools ready to go: deck matt, water bottle, sturdy deck chair and sweat towel

Issue: While we do not have hydrostatic pressure pushing our kidneys into overdrive, we also do not have that gentle force increasing venous return to our core.
We tend to work vigorously for a while, then stand, cue and motivate with the upper body. During this time, blood from the leg muscles is not being assisted back to the heart by leg movement and will pool in the legs and feet.
Solution: Gentle movement of your legs will assist your venous return. When you are ‘marking’ the movements rather than moving vigorously, be sure to have some leg movement to assist blood flow back to your upper body.

Issue: Blood is shunted to our skin in a fruitless attempt to assist cooling. This compromises blood flow to our working muscles, our heart, and our brains (which may explain why the best-planned routines sometimes can’t be remembered on deck!)
Solution: Hydration (pre-class and during the class), as well as the gentle movement mentioned above will help maintain blood volume and will assist venous return.

Issue: Impact on deck MUST be cushioned by a CALA deck mat, but even with this useful tool, our joints receive a great deal of pounding if we repetitively model jumping jacks, skis, or other movements that require both feet to leave the floor.
Solution: Mark (“fake”) airborne movements whenever possible. You can also use your arms to mimic your legs. Any vigorous movement demonstrations MUST be done on your mat. Pool ladders and solid deck chairs can assist the instructor to make impact-free demonstrations.

Issue: When demonstrating jumping jacks, wide hamstring jogormarch, wide tucks or squats, instructors often have the knee joint at an angle that places unhealthy forces on the medial knee ligaments. (A plumb-line dropped from the middle of the patella falls inside the feet, rather than over the middle of the foot.)
Solution: Ensure that your alignment is joint friendly. Be sure that the knees are over the middle toe when bending or absorbing impact. This may require external rotation of the hip joint and narrower foot placement.

Poor Knee Alignment:
Notice the plumb line from the knee cap, demonstrating poor knee alignment while landing a jumping jack or preparing for wide hamstring jog / hamstring curls. Gravitational forces on the knee follow this line, placing unhealthy forces on the medial knee joint. Jumping or squat actions place 3 – 8 X your body weight on your joints. Do the math with YOUR body weight to realize the trauma to your knees if you are poorly aligned.



Correct Knee Alignment:
Follow the plumb line from mid-patella. It falls over the middle of the foot. The forces of landing or squat actions are now transmitted evenly through the knee, ankle and foot. This position requires some external rotation of the hip.

Check Your Alignment: Do several jumping jacks, wide hamstring jogs / curls in front of a mirror and check your alignment! Stop the action in a wide stance with the knees slightly flexed. An imaginary plumb line from your patella should fall in the middle of your foot.


Issue: Muscle balance happens naturally in the water, where every action is resisted. On land, we work only against gravity. Our hip flexors work BOTH directions with every jogormarch we do! Add a number of tucks, cross over jogormarch and sartorius jogormarch and the strain on the hip flexors and low back becomes enormous. Low back pain is a common complaint among busy instructors. Overuse of hip flexors is the most likely culprit.
Solution: Do your own water workouts to achieve the same muscle balance benefits as your class. Cross train in a variety of activities to build well-rounded fitness and resilience to injury. Stretch your hip flexors and strengthen the EXTENSORS of your hips and low back, to balance the overuse of aquafit leadership.

Issue: Because deep water hamstring moves (hamstring chair, swivel, and pac man) are more difficult to demonstrate, some leaders focus more of their time on the hip flexor alternatives. In doing so, they rob their clients of excellent core stabilization and hamstring / gluteal training opportunities, and further over-emphasize the use of their own hip flexors as stabilizers.
Solution: Kneel on your mat, use the pool railings or mimic your legs with your arms. Your class probably needs emphasis on hip extensors and core stabilizers as much as you do. See ideas above about your own training needs.

Issue: Instructors who jump in and out of the water, or who teach on decks where their feet get soaked, may not wear prescribed orthotics or supportive footwear for the work they are doing.
Solution: Remember that you are working on cement. Look for a supportive deck shoe and / or plastic orthotics that can tolerate water. Triathelete shoes may work for you.

Issue: You are teaching many, many classes per week because: a) your class LOVES you and wants you and only you to teach them, several times per week; b) you need the money; c) there are not enough CALA-trained and certified leaders for the demand; d) you are a masochist
Solution: Remember BALANCE and moderation in all things! Get other leaders trained so you don’t have to bear the entire teaching load. If cash flow is a problem, aqua personal training can be far more lucrative than leading group aqua classes, AND it is easier on your body!

You have worked hard to achieve the CALA standard of excellence in aquafitness leadership. It’s not fair to you or to your participants if you are out of action due to accident, repetitive strain, traumatic injury, or psychological burnout. If you fail to take care of you, you won’t have anything left to give to others.

Take care of YOUR mind, body and spirit. Recharge your batteries and stimulate your mind by attending the CALA conference, reading research and interacting with other leaders. Honour your body by practicing leadership safety while teaching on deck. Cross-train your body by getting in the pool for your own workouts, and doing a variety of other healthy, balanced activity. If you happen to teach at outdoor pools, remember that sunscreen does NOT prevent skin cancer. Cover up with a sun hat; stay in the shade; wear sun-filtering, lightweight clothing while you teach. Avoid teaching too many classes, and take a break for a while if you find yourself feeling burned out. Lift your spirits by doing the special things that bring you joy. That way, the time, money, and hard work you have invested in becoming a CALA certified leader will benefit you and others for years to come.

Yackuafitness



Do you often find yourself teaching to the sides or backs of people’s heads? Do you have to raise your voice in a frustrated attempt to drown out the conversational drone from the pool? Have you wondered why some participants come to your class when it seems they don’t want a workout at all? Whenever the topic of ‘communication’ or ‘cueing’ arises among group aquafitness leaders, the issue of participant talking and inattentiveness rears its vocal head. Frustrations emerge as leaders share their exasperation with chatty, distracted participants. Tales of temper tantrums from both the water and the pool deck abound. Several years ago, I created a participant handout to deal with this issue. It is intended to heighten awareness regarding the purpose of the class and respect for the rights of others. It is reprinted in this issue, because clearly, the problem of ‘yackuafitness’ has not gone away!

Chatty participants raise the age old argument: are aquafitness classes for socialization or recreation? Is the class offered to promote fitness or mental health and community spirit? Whether you’re a social aqua-talker or a frustrated aqua leader, this issue is of importance to you. As a participant in a friend’s aqua class, I once jokingly challenged a chatty lady about her abundance of conversation and lack of physical effort. She quickly retorted that she was there to have ‘fun’…and to her, that obviously required non-stop dialogue with anyone who would listen. Most leaders have experienced the problems that even one avid talker can create in the group aqua setting. And somehow, like a cancer, chattiness seems to spread if the instructor isn’t able to create the desired climate in the class.

CALA training creates outstanding aquafitness leaders. We know this because of the popularity of our classes. Participants frequently express their surprise and appreciation when they witness the results of consistent, concentrated effort in the pool. The CALA holistic philosophy honours the needs and feelings of the participant, and all his or her reasons for being there. However, the class is titled “Aquafitness”, not “Yackuafitness”. Fitness is a key focus. In order to challenge the bodily systems enough to elicit a training response, participants must put effort into their movements. They must learn to move effectively. This requires the knowledge and skills learned from a vigilant instructor.

The water is a challenging training environment. Mind and body need to connect properly to maintain stable, functional movement. Also, the temperature of most recreational pools requires substantial muscle activation to maintain comfortable body warmth. It is possible to create an enlightening mind-body connection and excite the spirit of aquafitness participants without encouraging or endorsing non-stop conversation. In fact, distracting chit chat undermines this connection and the sense of exhilaration which can be achieved with concentrated effort in the pool. People always get more out of it when they put more into it! But what is a leader to do with inattentive talkers?

You can simply ask people to quit talking (good luck!). Non-verbal cueing works well to attract visual attention to the leader. Educational tid-bits increase knowledge of purpose and participant focus. You can enlighten your participants with the one-page handout at the end of this article (with your supervisor’s permission!). You can stomp off the pool deck in a fit of rage, and see whether or not they notice you have left. However, these things alone will not create the excitement and results achieved by an attentive class. Here are some suggestions to help you create a dynamic leadership base which will attract and hold your participants’ focus:

• Your cues must be clear. Use short, concise, purposeful words and phrases. Mix verbal and visual cueing.
• Smooth movement transitions reduce frustration and ensure success. I call this the “Holiday Inn” style of leadership: “no surprises”.
• Look, act, and feel professional. Keep up to date and continually strive to improve your leadership skills.
• Integrate some ‘new stuff’ into the class on a regular basis. Maintain a comfortable foundation of familiar activity to avoid instructional overload.
• Finally, to be the effective centre of your group’s attention, YOU need to be INTERESTING! YOU need to be EXCITING! YOU need to be FOCUSED! Do what it takes to light your fire (new music, a new outfit, attend inspirational classes, talk to your mentor…), then bring that passion to your classes.



Unfortunately, in our society, people get bored easily. The instructor needs to be any combination of: entertaining / challenging / humourous / passionate / lively… to hold their attention. I’ve heard leaders complain that their class won’t shut up and focus. Then, I have seen some of those leaders produce a basically sound, but monotone, unexciting class. You don’t have to be a stand-up comedian, mime, opera singer, clown, diva or cheer-leader, but some skill from any of those professions would be a welcome asset to add interest to your class.

The handout below includes more ideas to help participants ‘Belt Up and Get Splashing’. With some hard work and persistence, even confirmed “yack-and-float-club” members have made the conversion into hard-working aquaFITTERs. In my experience, they’re usually the first ones to tell other participants to shut up! Good luck taming your wet conversations.

You may re-print the following handout with my permission:

Belt Up & Get Splashing