Exercises For Speedo Water Gloves

Aqua fitness gloves increase the resistance you encounter when exercising in the water. With webbing between the fingers, you're forced to move more water with every move than when using your bare hands, requiring more powerful arm muscle movements. Typically made of neoprene, these gloves are lightweight and easy to incorporate into your water workouts.

  1. Heart Rate

    • As you're warming up for your water workout, let your webbed water gloves help you raise your heart rate. When you're water walking or jogging, move your hands under the water to use the gloves' resistance to get your heart rate up. When marching or jogging in place in the pool, put your arms in front of you and act like you're paddling, almost like a dog paddle. This keeps your arms engaged as you get your body ready for the workout.

    Swimming

    • Swimming laps is an effective way to get your workout in, especially in the heat of the summer. Adding water gloves to your lap routine makes you work harder to get in the same number of laps. The gloves have a larger surface area than your hands, making you move more water with your hands to propel your body forward. Your arms, shoulders, chest and back work harder as you use the same strokes as you would without the gloves. Building these muscles also can help you improve your swim speed when you try laps without the gloves.

    Wrist and Forearms

    • Webbed water gloves don't just have to contribute to a full-body workout. They also help you target specific areas as part of your aquatic routine. When you want to build the muscles in your wrists and forearms, hold your elbows by your sides with your fingers pointing straight up. Bend your wrist to lower your hands, keeping the rest of your arms still. Stop when your fingers are pointing down, then lift your hands so your fingers point up again. Make slow movements; the importance is the resistance, not the speed. Turn your hands over so your thumbs point up, then lift and lower your hands, bending only your wrists to build the muscles along the sides as well. Making a fist can provide a bit more resistance in this position.

    Other Arm Exercises

    • For a total arm workout, move your arms in the same way you would when using land or water dumbbells, but keep your hands open whenever possible to allow the gloves' webbing to provide maximum resistance. For example, step into deep water or sink down so your shoulders are underwater, then perform biceps curls. Keep your hands palms up as you bend your elbows, then turn them palms down to return to the starting position. Other ideas include lateral raises, in which you lift straight arms to each side, and alternating forward punches -- with fingers pointing up instead of balled into a fist.