First of all, we would hate to see anything bad happen to anybody, so if you have any doubts or questions about your health, be sure to consult a liscenced (insured) medical professional.

This brings up a great point about swimming. As I’m sure you’ve heard, swimming is an excellent exercise for people with joint pain, because it is resistance based and involves no weight bearing.

Swimming would be a great muscle building exercise for someone with arthritis. Water provides 12 times the resistance of air, so it will certainly help build, shape, and tone muscle. It will also accomplish your cardio and muscular exercises at the same time. Another great exercise can be water walking. I know that walking for muscle building may sound silly, but when you add the resistance of the water it is very effective.

A combination of water walking and swimming is great for arthritis. If the arthritis affects your shoulders, regular freestyle may cause you some problems, and if so consider a breaststroke or sidestroke. If you do choose freestyle, try and mix in some swimming on your back to preserve your shoulder flexibility.

For water walking, a few things to remember:

1. If you are not comfortable in the water, stick to shallower water, meaning that when standing flat footed, the water comes no higher than your shoulders. The deeper the water, the more the workout, but this is not to say that you necessarily need it to be up to your shoulders. To do deep water walking (where you can’t touch the bottom), you need a floatation belt, and should set up an instructional lesson with a professional water aerobics instructor, which may be available at your local YMCA or other recreational center.
2. When walking in water it is tempting to walk on your toes. Avoid doing this: take normal steps heal-toe-heal-toe. Make sure you keep your shoulders back and your body upright. Use your arms, as though you are doing a power walk, to work out your upper body muscles too.
3. Many people like to get a designated pair of water-walking shoes to help maintain proper heal-toe form. Any cheap pair of walking shoes will work.
4. Don’t overdo it. It will feel strange, as walking in water is much slower than walking on land, so avoid the temptation to strain yourself to walk at “land speed.” Instead, for an increased workout, lift your knees high on each step.

I would still recommend mixing in some light weight lifting every so often, (once or twice a week if you can find the time) because weight-bearing exercises help maintain bone strength better than resistance exercises (aka swimming/water walking) don’t.