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.

One possibility of which you may not even yet be aware (if you're not a big infomercial watcher) is that of the endless pool, created by the eponymous Endless Pools Inc., the company that's been installing them for over a decade. People have called endless pools 'the treadmill for swimmers' and that's a fairly accurate description, although the endless pool can simulate swift swimming far better than a treadmill can the action of hard running. In fact, a well-installed Endless Pool can help you improve your endurance power in swimming to levels you never dreamed of. For those who already have a pool, the company's 'Fastlane' unit can bring all the benefits of an endless pool to just about any pool. So long as your hot tub is long enough for you to stretch arms and legs out in, you can have the best of both worlds.

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.