Swim In Place -- This Pool Treadmill Comes At A Price

GINNY DIDN'T THINK SHE'D like the SwimEx. A contraption that lets you swim in place? Do swimmers really need a counterpart to the treadmill?

Given her druthers, Ginny would swim in Lake Washington all year. Being neither a masochist nor Polar Bear Club member, however, she settles for swimming laps in pools most of the time. When she doesn't get in the water for a couple of days, Ginny gets a little grumpy, though not nearly as cross as when folks dawdle in her lap lanes.

All this, I thought, made Ginny a good tester of the SwimEx. Certainly better than me. First of all, I can't find my swimsuit. Besides, the last time I was in a pool for a workout, I grabbed a kickboard to begin my knee-surgery rehab - and went backward.

Ginny and I headed to Capitol Hill to the home of Walt and Lori Weber, owners of one of the handful of SwimExs in this area. When planning for Lori's recovery from two hip-replacement operations, the couple first looked into building a lap pool. But the price of sinking pilings into the hillside made them think again. One day, while waiting to be seated at a restaurant, they saw an ad for the SwimEx in a sports magazine. Before long, they had a complete addition to their house, including a room just for the SwimEx.

A new room isn't essential, though, since the machine is a free-standing device, like an oversized (85 by 48 inches) hot tub with a paddle wheel on one end. The pool can be sunk into the ground or set on a floor with a deck build up around it. The user controls the water temperature and the current (generated by the paddle wheel). The idea is to aim upstream and try to hold your own.

"Whoa!" Ginny said after pushing the button to get the paddle wheel going; as the current picked up speed, she found herself pushed toward the back of the pool. "I'd better get busy." She tried out her high-splash crawl. She slowed the paddle wheel for the breaststroke. And after about 10 minutes she stood up, turned down the current and declared, "That was fun! You could definitely get a workout in here."

What surprised Ginny more was how the SwimEx mimicked swimming in a river.

"The swimming-in-the-current thing was really cool," she said. It reminded her of when she'd go to rivers with a friend. He'd fish; she'd head upriver to swim. "Even if I didn't keep up with the current, I'd still wind up `home.' "

Being able to exercise at home won over Lori Weber, 65. "I knew I had to swim, but when you're on crutches, you just don't get into the car and go to the swimming pool like you should." She swims for 20 to 25 minutes three times a week, does some hip exercises in the water, and then turns up the paddle wheel for a massage effect. "It really helped me recuperate a lot faster."

In Federal Way, Bobby Yeck, 68, a disabled World War II and Korean War veteran, uses a SwimEx for therapy after being paralyzed on one side from a stroke. "He's able to maneuver better," says Alex Plys, 70, his personal guardian. "He's more relaxed, and it helps with his weight control."

On Lopez Island, Richard Fagen considers his SwimEx a substitute for bicycles and treadmills. A retired Stanford University political science professor, Fagen, 60, and his wife, Deborah Bundy, 50, each swim about 30 minutes a day. He thinks it's easier than swimming in a lap pool. Fagen also runs in place: "It's much easier on the back and knees than running on concrete."

It's not so easy on the wallet, though. Prices range from $22,950 for the basic model, which is 42 inches deep and has a top speed of 4.5 miles per hour, to $34,000 for the 60-inch-deep model that can hit 6.5 mph and challenge even Olympic-class swimmers. (For information, call 361-0052.)

And those prices don't include the surroundings: Yeck's state-of-the-art pine room cost $81,600, including the machine. The Webers figure they spent around $120,000 on the new room. Fagen and Bundy put their SwimEx in a separate building.

So physical therapy centers and the like are probably more common candidates for the SwimEx. Perhaps someday a health club with no pool and limited space might give one a try. Folks would have to sign up and wait, just like with stair climbers. Maybe I'd even give it a try.

If I could find that swimsuit.

Molly Martin is assistant editor of Pacific.