‘There’s one thing you don’t want to happen a few month after you move halfway round the world and that’s your arch nemesis appearing on your new home turf. But this week, that happened to me. Said nemesis wasn’t an ex-boyfriend or a bitchy boss however, it was floating exercise mat.
Called AquaBase, I’d first become acquainted with this in London two summers ago. I tottered off to Hyde Park on a typical London summer day (ie cold) and waded into a lake where I was to spend the next hour balancing on said mat. 10 minutes later, I waded back out smelling faintly of duck poo and mildly miserable. For the life of me I could not stand on this stupid bit of plastic and the kid that got picked last for sport at school was making a rapid entrance into my psyche.
So when I saw that AquaBase was launching a set of classes called FloatFit here in Australia this week part of me wanted to give it a wide berth. But, I couldn’t because, frankly, it just looks and sounds such fun.
The premise is this – imagine a square stand-up paddleboard tethered in a pool upon which you do a mix of yoga, toning moves like planks and high-intensity moves like burpees, mountain climber and rapid squats. Not only does this mean you get the normal cardio and toning benefits of the exercise, but the instability of being on water means you also have to engage your deeper core muscle and the smaller auxiliary muscles to stay upright and balanced which creates a better whole body workout.
Add to this the fact that there’s a good chance you, or someone else, will fall in at some point and it has all the hallmarks of a fun class. So I went to have another look.
I was glad I did, as unlike ex-boyfriends and bitchy bosses, AquaBase has changed in the time we’ve been apart. ‘We’re on the fifth generation of the mat,’ explained co-owner Tom Whelan. ‘It’s shorter, wider and about 4-5kg lighter than the one you tried which makes it much easier to balance on.’ On top of this, they’ve now marked a ‘centre of gravity’ point on the mat. Aim to keep the middle of your body positioned over this and your stability is far better.
The classes also now have more structure and education – in London I’d been on the board less than a minute before I was told to jump to my feet. Now, you spend a good 5-10 minutes of the 30 minute class getting used to balance and the moment of the mat (doing this really fun wobbly move) before you stand up or try anything tricky – and standing up is done in stages. Yes, people still fall in – but when you’re falling into a sunny swimming pool rather than a cold poo-filled lake, and it’s 27 outside, I can handle that. Like me, it seems FloatFit rather suits its new Aussie home.
Right now FloatFit classes are running in Adelaide only, but aim to launch officially in Sydney and elsewhere in the country in the next month or so. Go on Aquaphysical for more details.
