Spring is the perfect time to have a new swimming pool built. It is already starting to get hot and muggy, but there is still time to get the pool installed and ready for swimming before the super hot months of summer arrive. A swimming pool is a great investment for your home as it increases the home's value when it is time to sell in the future. A new swimming pool is also an investment in the health of your family members. Before you meet with a swimming pool builder to discuss the design of the pool, consider which of these health benefits most appeal to you so you can develop a pool around these needs.

Cardio Pool

Cardio exercise is the best way to increase your heart rate to the point that the body starts to burn fat cells. Just like running, walking or exercise classes at the gym, swimming at a good pace in your new pool increases your heart rate to give you a cardio workout. The biggest benefit of a pool cardio workout though is that the weight of your body is supported in the water. This means you can workout without putting stress on your leg joints. Stressed joints is a big negative when working out on a hard gym floor.

The best design for a pool that will be used for a cardio workout is a rectangle. This gives you a chance to build up speed with your strokes before turning and heading back the other way. This is known as doing laps in your pool. To keep things interesting while doing laps, change the swim stroke after every five lengths. For example, start with breast stroke, change to butterfly, then switch to backstroke and bring it home with five lengths of freestyle. Starting every day with cardio swimming will certainly wake up the body and mind for the day's challenges ahead.

Meditation Pool

Meditation is a wonderful way to block out the noise of the world for a while. Investing time to destress and relax your body lowers your chance of tense muscles, tension headaches and catching illnesses because of a lowered immune system. You may never have considered mediation in the pool, but there are a couple of ways that you can cool off in the water while still having some mental healing time:

• Floating mediation involves meditating while floating in the pool. Put yourself into a back float position with your arms out to the side, and allow your ears to dip below the water to block out noise. Close your eyes, and concentrate on slowly breathing in and out while you clear your mind of thought.
• Swimming meditation involves focusing on the rhythmically repeated movements of slow swimming strokes. Rather than swimming fast as you would for a cardio workout, swim at a relaxed, leisurely pace and focus on your breathing and the feeling of the stroke as you glide through the water.

A pool that will be used for meditation can be either rectangular or circular because you don't need the length to build up your heart rate. Plant lots of mature trees around a mediation pool so you can also sit beside the water and meditate under the trees as an alternative to meditating in the water. You can also include yoga stretches in your meditation time to relax the body and lower your stress rate.

A swimming pool is not only about fun for the kids this summer. When you choose the right design, you can also enhance your family's health, so be sure to keep these points in mind when you sit down to discuss the new pool shape with your pool builder.