Installing a lap pool or endless swimming pool in your home is a long term investment in your health and fitness as much as it is one in the overall value of your house. Let's face it - gyms are smelly, nerve-racking places. Many people are turned off by the constant scrutiny of perfectly built athletes as much as they are by the pounding techno favored by most fitness clubs.

When it comes to picking a lap pool design, the first question to arise will be whether you even have enough space in your back yard to accomodate the necessary proportions of an inground lap pool. The shortest you can have a lap pool be without making it ineffective for exercise is about forty feet, with a width of at least eight feet and about three and a half feet for its depth. For most swimmers this may actually be prohibitively shallow - hardly the depth for diving or backflip splashing contests. The good news is that, by contrast with the typical recreational pool, the water requirements of such a pool are pretty minor.

If you don't have enough space for this kind of lap pool design, there's another option available to you. An endless swimming pool (of the Endless Pools Inc. variety) uses variously directed hose nozzles to create an adjustable current for you to swim against. It's often been called a treadmill for swimmers. The company now even produces a unit that you can install into your existing pool called 'FastLane'. The adjustable nature of the resistance makes it suitable for swimmers of all levels of fitness.

Endless pools are also hydraulically powered, which keeps their consumption of electricity down so low you'll scarcely notice the drain. While there's nothing that beats the freedom of a full-length lap pool design, this option is both a space saver and a great showpiece sure to fascinate guests and reignite your family's interest in physical fitness.