Published on: September 28, 2020

Water polo competitors at Patriot Aquatics are being conditioned for success in every area of their life. This is because the attributes that make a successful athlete are the same attributes that will make a fulfilling and balanced life. Our organization is built on core values designed to improve the characters of every member. We strongly believe in developing the balance of physical and mental strength in our competitors. And we’ve seen the same lessons applied in our water polo club help our competitors thrive in their classrooms, which lead to a performance in sports and then fulfillment in life. We always strive for our lessons to go further than the pool.

There’s not many sports that will condition an athlete like water polo. That’s because players often swim 1,600 yards in a single game. That’s nearly a mile of just swimming! There’s also a considerable amount of treading water competitors have to do during offensive and defensive possessions. And there’s basically no breaks for competitors during games. According to burned-calories.com, an hour of playing water polo burns an average of 680 calories! That’s a lot of calories for such a short period of time! Just to put that in perspective, jogging on a treadmill for an hour usually burns 400-500 calories. So yes, along with calorie-burning, water polo is great for improving endurance and cardiovascular health.

Water polo is great because it allows you to develop your full body. Upper body, lower body, and core. All of it matters. Because of that, there’s a never-ending list of ways for water polo players to develop their bodies, and practices can have a lot of variety. Another advantage of water polo competitors is the improvement of performance in multiple areas. For example, You can lift weights and improve your muscles’ strength and bulk, and later jump in the pool for a swim set to condition those exact same muscles for endurance. It’s a very holistic approach to exercise that will exercise your body in a variety of ways. You’ll see improvements across the board, and it’s much healthier than one prescribed way to train your body.

Water polo is widely considered one of the toughest sports in the world, so naturally, there are some bragging rights that come with the game. Sure, some people might disagree with that claim. But more often than not, that person has never seen a match. If they had, they’d see that water polo involves vigorous swimming up and down the length of the pool, as well as intense water-treading on both offensive and defensive ends. There’s no touching the bottom of the pool, grabbing the poolside walls or lane-ropes. In addition to that, competitors are usually getting grabbed, hit, and kicked by the opposing team. Now just add a ball and a couple of cages to that chaos... and that’s water polo in a nutshell.

In September of 2011, Bleacher Report completed a hierarchy of the top 10 toughest sports in the world. The judging was based on six different categories and arranged according to the highest overall score. The six categories were: speed, endurance, strength, agility, skill level, and physicality. And not surprisingly, water polo came in at the number one spot!

There are none if you’re okay with a little bit of physicality. Water polo rules.