Few Local Adults Try Aqua Aerobics

Parents’ help their children climb out of the pool after the lifeguard has already given the last call. It is now the beginning adult swim, or “moonlight lagoon” as veterans of the pool prefer to call it.

The lights are dimmed and the pool has just two women in floral print bathing suits gliding through the water. Both are the only two warming up for the night’s Aqua Aerobics class.

“We come because it’s healthy and fun,” Laura Rojas, 58, a South Gate resident who has been doing Aqua Aerobics for three weeks. “It’s the best exercise and my doctor recommended it.”

The course is offered as an alternative means of exercise.

Amanda Reyes, 25, the lifeguard who runs the class, believes that creating an atmosphere that is different from going to the gym is important.

“It’s different than the gym,” said Reyes, who will also customize her training routine for the participants. “We create a different atmosphere.”

The women do curl-ups with the foam weights, moving their arms down and out of the water for added resistance, moving in time to Flo Rida’s “Good Feeling” playing from  a radio.

Interest in the class has not always been constant and it has had its off-seasons during its ten-year existence.

 “There are 14 or 15 [people] in the summer on average,” said South Gate’s Aquatics Coordinator, Patricia Mitchell. “The more people who use it, the more likely it is to be open.”

This particular evening’s class was only made up of  Rojas and Alicia Raya, 80, who are hoping to change this.

“We’ve been telling more people to join,” said Rojas. ”A couple more are going to join.”

The Aqua Aerobics class is offered Monday and Wednesday from 9 p.m. to 9:45 p.m. at the South Gate Swim Stadium 9520 Hildreth Avenue, and costs $4. 

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