The sport and exercise industry is a fiercely competitive business space. Whether you own a gym, leisure centre, or for that matter, are part of a running or athletics club, offering the best experience and standing out from your competitors is vital when looking to attract customers and members.
One of the greatest ways to do this is with a pool. It’s the first thing I look for in a new gym.
Swimming is a great workout because you need to move your whole body against the resistance of the water.
Swimming is a good all-round activity because it:
1 - keeps your heart rate up but takes some of the impact stress off your body
2 - builds endurance, muscle strength and cardiovascular fitness
3 - helps you maintain a healthy weight, healthy heart and lungs
4 - tones muscle and builds strength
5 - provides an all-over body workout - nearly all of your muscles are used during swimming.
6 - is a relaxing and peaceful exercise
8 - improves coordination, balance and posture
9 - improves flexibility
10 - provides good low-impact therapy for some injuries and conditions
And the great news is, if your gym or club is short on space (or budget) you don’t have to bring in the JCBs and sacrifice your car park to offer your members the facility to swim!
With a swim spa from Hydropool Midlands, your sporting facility could attract a wider range of clients or members, with a state of the art and versatile environment to exercise in.
Imagine never having to turn, touch or push off from any wall. Our swim current gives you the ability to focus on your stroke technique and enjoy the fluidity of the swim current, adjusted to your personal swim level.
Designed by a team of Canadian sport physiologists, our swim spas are built to the highest possible standard and designed to provide users with an experience suitable for an elite level athlete. Our expertly designed AquaFlo Swim Jet Design provides swimmers with a smooth current flowing at a speed of their choice to swim against, allowing your facility to cater for a wide range of abilities.
Also, to ensure a seamless swimming experience, the swim lane does not contain objects like steps or benches, so you can swim without the worry of bashing your feet against something, providing your athletes or customers with a much better experience than any other swim spas currently on the market.
Our swim spas are also extremely versatile, benefitting a wide range of clients, members and scenarios.
Thanks to the spacious environment your swim spa can be used for a wide range of exercise types.
Our pools are spacious enough for athletes to perform aerobic exercises, resistance-based exercise as well as flexibility and stretching based exercises. As a result, your swim spa is an attractive proposition for an array of clients and athletes with a variety of exercise goals and needs (much better than other pieces of gym equipment that can be fairly one dimensional in terms of what they can be used to achieve).
In fact, our swim spas can be used for pretty much any part of an average exercise session, meaning your athletes and clients could use it at any stage of their sessions, even the entire session, for instance:
Whilst attracting clients whose reason for exercise is solely focused on fitness may be relatively straightforward for most gyms and leisure centres, your swim spa can add a more holistic, end to end aspect to your client or member offer. Clients who are recovering from an injury or specific illness, for instance, may have had to previously freeze their membership until they’d regained fitness - but with a swim spa YOU can be part of their recovery process.
A swim spa can provide the perfect solution to injury. Research has shown warm water increases blood circulation, which in turn increases the delivery of oxygenated blood and nutrients to injured body tissues, helping the tissue to recover faster (Petrofsky et al, 2013). Additionally, exercise would appear much safer when submerged in water for those recovering from an injury.
Water creates a low impact environment, meaning it reduces the demand placed on our joints and muscles during exercise (Versus Arthritis, 2021), allowing injured athletes to safely exercise without the risk of suffering from a re-occurrence of the injury or worsening their current condition. Therefore, with the use of one of our swim spas, your facility will be able to better cater for those looking to utilise exercise to aid their recovery process.
Whilst injuries in team sports are common, the psychological effect that an injury may have on an athlete can vary greatly, with some athletes suffering from mental health issues due to feeling isolated from their teammates (Santos et al, 2020). Fortunately, our swim spas could be used to counter this.
Take the Dual Temperature Swim Spa & Hot Tub, during the early phases of recovery, injured athletes could simply bathe in the hot tub section, allowing the warm water to support blood circulation and decrease recovery time (An et al, 2019, Santos et al, 2020) and still feel part of the group as teammates use the swim spa section to train.
During the later stages of the recovery process, recovering athletes could join in aquatic based sessions with their teammates. Due to the no impact environment created by the water in our swim spas, recovering athletes can safely train alongside their teammates, allowing them to begin to re-build muscular strength without the risk of worsening their injury (Buckthorpe et al, 2019).
Whether your facility trains high level athletes or is open to the public, minimising the risk of injuries is vital to keep your athletes performing at the highest level or to ensure that your paying customers keep returning. Not only will your state-of-the-art swim spa offer your athletes or clients a versatile and spacious environment to exercise in, but research also shows that water-based exercise carries a reduced risk of injury.
In a piece written on AXA Health (2020), senior physiologist Raj Kundhi explains that as we step into a pool, the water supports approximately 90% of our body weight. As a result of this, the demand and stress placed on joints is significantly reduced, therefore decreasing the risk of injury (Torres-Ronda & Alcázar, 2014).
Swim spa users have also reported that they feel looser and more flexible when exercising. It appears there is some science behind this. Firstly, research has found that, when in warm water joints and muscles enjoy an increased range of motion, down to the support the water provides. This makes us more flexible and reduces the risk of injuries, like muscle sprains and tears (AICA Orthopaedics, 2020). MayoClinic (2021) reports that when in warm water our muscles completely relax, allowing them to become much more flexible and loose. As a result, the risk of muscle strains and tears is again significantly decreased.
Research conducted by Kanas State University (2012) found that those who train with an exercise partner train up to 200% more than those who exercise by themselves. Therefore, by providing a space for your athletes or clients to train together, your facility will ensure your athletes are able to maximise their fitness gains.
Unlike most pieces of equipment, you may find in a gym, our swim spas can be utilised by multiple athletes at once. This means that not only will your facility have the state-of-the-art equipment to attract a wide range of individual clients, but your facility will also be able to cater for grouped clients - including exercise buddies and smaller fitness classes.
One user even delivers adult swimming lessons in their 19DTFX AQUA SPORT SWIM SPA & HOT TUB, the proximity of the hot tub and swim section allowing them to swap places with their student to demonstrate technique.
The 19DTFX AQUA SPORT SWIM SPA & HOT TUB actually has Hydrotherapy Seating for 4 People in addition to the swimming lane – so a five-a-side football team could us this dual temperature swim spa and hot tub, taking turns turns to swim and relax and socialise (or discuss tactics).
Team cohesion is vital to success at any level (Filho et al, 2014) and research has found that teams who train together are much more likely to form a cohesive unit (Schmutz et al, 2019). As a result, any facility looking to host sports teams needs to be able to offer an environment in which team members can efficiently train alongside one another.
So, there you have it, add swimming to your gym or club’s offer, without the need for a pool!
To experience Hydropool Midlands’ Hot Tubs and Swim Spas for yourself, visit our showroom just off junction 25 of the M1 for Nottingham. Request a brochure or a home visit and you can find out more across the Hydropool Midlands website, or by calling 0800 144 8827