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"Kick! Kick! Kick!" commands water-aerobics instructor Noreen Frye. "Keep arms and elbows up! Cross your hands! Lunge to the left!" Her class at the University of Miami's Wellness Center obeys, splashing and bouncing in the water with all the enthusiasm--if not quite the precision--of the Rockettes. Among the young bikini-clad students and middle-aged faculty exercising at the multimillion-dollar center are retired lawyer Fred Piccini, 69, and his wife Celia, 64. "It makes me feel years younger," says Fred, though he needed some persuading before he would so much as dip his toe in the water. Celia, who had been experiencing the aches and pains of growing older, started the class six months ago, and Fred would wait outside."I thought it was all sissy business," he recalls. But when he saw the dramatic difference it was making for Celia, he capitulated. "She's happier, gets around easier and doesn't hurt as much," he observes. Says Celia: "For the first time in years, I was getting muscles."
The Harvard Women's Health Watch calls water "an ideal exercise medium, both gentle and demanding." Physical therapists have known for years about the benefits of exercising in water, which cushions joints while it strengthens muscles by providing 12 times as much resistance as air. Robert Forster, a physical therapist in Santa Monica, Calif., has worked with Olympians Jackie Joyner-Kersee and the late Florence Griffith Joyner and puts famous clients like Billy Crystal through pool workouts. Says he: "Water's buoyance lets you run, walk, leap, stretch and pivot without the injury, strain and reinjury common to other programs." Weight reduction is an added benefit: aquatics can burn up to 500 calories an hour.
Water exercises are popular with people of all ages, and for the 50-plus generation, the spirit of camaraderie and support is a big asset. Notes Miami's Dianne Rose, a fitness trainer who has made an aerobics video for the elderly: "The group atmosphere can be very motivating, and it's a very social thing that keeps people more interested in life." Older people seeking to increase endurance and enhance well-being have recognized the pleasurable benefits of working out in water, and more and more health clubs, gyms and pools around the country are scheduling aquatic sessions. The parks and recreations department of Fairfax County, Va., for example, has some 140 water activities for seniors, ranging from rigorous water walking with the help of flotation belts and buoyant barbells to exercises tailored for people with arthritis or chronic pain.
In their book Successful Aging, Dr. John W. Rowe, president of New York City's Mount Sinai Hospital, and Robert L. Kahn, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Michigan, conclude that the most important factor in sustained health is regular exercise. Ten years ago, Manhattan's Jennifer Rushton, 54, started twice-weekly water exercises. "I was doing a lot of office work and found I was very unfit," she says. "Now I feel better than 10 years ago, more flexible and stronger." Among the programs she can choose from at the Equinox health club in Manhattan are gentle waves, surf's up, new wave aqua, power plunge and yoga water stretch.