Float your way to a flat tummy!
We try the unlikely new exercise trend that’s making a splash among fitness fanatics...
THE ground beneath me is moving and I feel dizzy. Soon, I am seeing black spots. I’m pretty sure at any minute I’m going to fall over, vomit — or both.
‘Look straight ahead,’ says the man next to me. ‘It’ll help you get your sea legs.’
I focus on a spot on the wall and think of my father telling me that same thing on a particularly choppy hovercraft trip. But I am not on a boat — I am at an exercise class.
There are many things I expect to feel during my rare attempts to work out. Tired, yes. Sweaty, definitely. Humiliated, always. One thing I didn’t think I would feel was seasick.
But things move fast in the fitness world and, it seems, the latest way to trim your waist and tone your abs involves balancing on a mat that is floating on water, doing a series of strenuous exercises.
Of course, working out in the water is nothing new: it’s perennially popular with the over-50s, since it’s low impact, meaning it doesn’t hurt your joints.
Working out on top of the water offers the same benefits — the board moves with you as you jump up and down, so you never land with a thud — but also allows you to complete sequences of exercises more quickly and efficiently than in the water.
And having to balance all the time, I’m told, is incredibly good for your core muscles.
In recent years, HIIT (high-intensity interval training) has been the fashionable way to tone up. With this method, you exercise in short, sharp bursts in order to burn more calories and fat, typically through sprinting and other high-impact moves.
But a recent study found that followers are injuring themselves as they put their bodies through an intense workout they are simply not fit enough to attempt.
The craze has even resulted in an increase in a condition called rhabdomyolysis, where sufferers experience pain due to muscle breaking down after over-exercise.
Exercising in water is a lot gentler and safer. And while that once meant aqua aerobics or, for the old-fashioned among us, a swim, now there’s a whole new array of classes being offered in the pool.
These include aqua spinning — exercising on a submerged, fixed bicycle in a swimming pool — underwater weightlifting, and now this class, performed on a floating exercise mat.
FloatFit is growing increasingly popular across Europe, especially in Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands. There’s even a range of fitness gear created by Speedo for the classes. Sports And Fitness Markievic in Dublin 2 has picked up on the trend and is the only gym running FloatFit classes in Ireland, but you can expect many more to follow.
PERSONAL trainer Tom Whelan created FloatFit. He tells me: ‘It’s grown quickly. It’s something completely different and it’s fun. People have a laugh. It’s a great exercise for your core, which has to work hard to keep you upright on the mat.
‘Also, as it’s on water, it’s low impact, and this makes it good for people with joint problems.
‘It’s a great way to improve balance and increase strength, two things that go as we get older. In fact, our oldest client is a lady of 80, who loves it. That said, we have all ages, from 16 upwards.’
And so I go to try it out, heading to the London Aquatics Centre for a 7.30am clas. I am barely awake, but in the beautiful, Zaha Hadid-designed pool where Tom Daley won bronze at the London Olympics, dozens of ridiculously toned bodies are doing laps.
I keep an eye out for Daley, who still trains here, but I can’t see him. It doesn’t matter, because everyone looks like Tom Daley, including my instructor.
With my wobbly limbs, I could not feel more out of my depth. That feeling gets worse as I attempt the first part of the class: standing up on the board, something that is certainly not as simple as it sounds.
I swim out to it and haul myself on to the mat — officially called the AquaBase — which is made of PVC that becomes as hard as a surfboard once inflated.
My attempts at climbing on the board may not have been elegant but, once I’m on, it feels rather relaxing. I could happily stay lying down, but Tom is telling me to get on all fours, which causes the board to rock furiously. I finally manage to steady myself, but Tom wants more. ‘Now, stand up,’ he says. ‘How?’ ‘Just stand up, slowly.’ The board has a logo in the centre that marks its centre of gravity. I shuffle my feet towards it and stand up like Bambi — if Bambi had to take his first steps while floating on a PVC mat in an Olympic swimming pool.
I manage, somehow, to get up, but I’m sure I’ll fall down again.
‘Oh, you will,’ says Tom. ‘Guaranteed.’ Just to force the matter, he tells me to rock my hips, so that the board shakes and I get used to the feeling of being on water. Then I have to put my hands up high into the air and look up.
That’s when I start to see black spots. I am wobbly and disoriented, but all I’m doing is standing up. What hope is there for the rest of the class?
On Tom’s instructions, I look ahead and take deep breaths. Just as I’m finding my balance, he barks further orders, taking me through a circuit-based routine — of squats, planks, lunges — things I find hard enough on solid ground, let alone on water.
The good news is that I am so focused on staying on the board, I don’t think about the fact that I’m exercising. And somehow, I manage to say upright for, well, minutes . . . until Tom suggests I might like to try burpees — a single move that combines a squat, a push-up and a jump. ‘Are you joking?’ I ask, hoping that he is.
FOLLOWING his instructions, I start off standing, then squat down, putting my hands on the mat, before kicking my legs back into a plank position.
The board shakes ferociously. I keep going, get back into the squat, stand up and . . . go overboard with a belly flop, a scream and a huge splash.
When I re-surface, Tom is smiling. ‘You’ve done pretty well,’ he says. ‘Some people fall off as soon as they stand up.’
Next we try lunges — and I’m overboard again.
By the end of the 30-minute class, I’ve fallen off four times. But, actually, falling was the best bit — once I’d done it the first time, the whole thing became less scary and more fun.
I finish the lesson looking like a wet dog, but I couldn’t care less. It was the most fun, invigorating and, well, wet, exercise class I’ve ever done. I might have been thrown in at the deep end, but I didn’t sink, I swam — and at the very least, I made a splash.