When you think of water aerobics it's hard to picture anything other than grandmothers on pool floats chatting about their knitting meeting. It's not easy to picture a bunch of hard corps core Marines splashing through a workout ... until now. This week Marine Corps Times staff writer James Sanborn wrote about the Corps' new fitness regimen:
Water aerobics is not just for retirees anymore. The Marine Corps is promoting low-impact pool running — dubbed "water cadence"— to help even the fittest Marines up their game.
With 32 instructors working at 15 swimming pools across the Corps, the service has embraced its new fitness regimen that practitioners attest will leave you sucking wind. Only one facility with a base pool, Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, does not yet offer the program, which features workouts that last between 20 and 60 minutes and push participants to "total exertion."
Yes, this type of exercise has been associated with "the little old ladies' social hour," acknowledged Kari Hemund, the aquatics specialist at Headquarters Marine Corps. But "we have taken that perception and revamped it."
