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Pool Exercises for Disabled Children

Water-based exercises are useful for people with joint pain or balance problems, but pool exercises can also improve the health and well-being of children with disabilities. Pool exercises help children with restricted mobility build muscular strength, and therapy pools are also used to relieve stress in children with emotional disabilities. The best pool exercises for your child depend on the type and scope of her disabilities, and all children should be supervised while exercising in a pool.

  1. Cardiovascular Activities

    • Children with limited mobility struggle to include cardiovascular activity into their regular routine, but swimming pools provide a balance of both support through buoyancy and resistance ideal for cardiovascular workouts. A basic pool exercise for heart health is water walking or modified swimming. Depending on the strength and lower body mobility of your child, you may opt to support your child's upper body beneath her armpits or elbows as she kicks through deeper water or wades through a pool's shallow end. If her lower body mobility is too restricted, support her body at the waist and hold her parallel to the pool floor while she uses her arms to imitate swimming.

    Rehabilitation Exercises

    • Aqua therapy is a branch of rehabilitation therapy that demonstrates promise for children with spinal cord injuries or cerebral palsy who have trouble walking. Traditional rehabilitative therapy carries a risk of additional injury from falling or tripping on treadmills, but a specially designed underwater treadmill provides the benefits of walking therapy with the benefits of water exercise. Water therapy increases blood flow to the muscles, so children using water treadmills are able to walk for longer amounts of time, increasing the effectiveness of their rehabilitative therapy. As your child's strength and endurance builds, increase the amount of time he spends on the underwater treadmill.

    Strength-Building Exercises

    • Children with disabilities have as great a need for strength-building physical activities as able-bodied children, but their access or ability to play traditional sports may be limited. Pools provide natural resistance for a variety of strength-building activities that are efficient and fun. To build upper body and arm strength, challenge your child to sit on the pool stairs with a majority of her torso underwater and to lift her arms through the water and over her head several times. To target the lower body, use a higher stair and help your child lean back as she lifts her legs out of the water one at a time.

    Balance and Control

    • Pool balance challenges help children with disabilities gain control of their muscle groups and focus on singular tasks. Basic balance challenges like standing on one foot are safer alternatives to land exercises where a child might fall and injure himself. Floating activities may seem simple, but they build balance, promote motor control and help your child relax and self-soothe in times of distress. Though floating on her back may frighten your child at first, supporting her weight with your arms and guiding her around the pool will ease her anxiety until she is able to float with minimal support.

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