Types of strength for swimmers

Swimming is not a sport that gives immediate gratification. When a person comes into competitive swimming without a base of athleticism, a great deal of time and energy must be devoted to building that base, to prepare the person to take on the rigors of training for competitive swimming. In contrast, when these qualities are already present, a swimmer is able to excel faster. A swimmer who comes into swimming with an athletic base in place is able to concentrate on developing solid swimming skills, gaining swimming experience, and swimming fast.

Importance of core stability in swimming

Balancing and maintaining a streamlined body position are critical in swimming. Being able to control your body improves efficiency and allows swimmers to move through the water with minimal resistance. To achieve this position however, swimmers need to have strength and control of the muscles through the middle part of their body – the area known as core. This muscles in short are: the erector spinae muscles, the internal and external oblique muscles, the transverse abdominis, the rectus abdominis, and many other muscles that attach to and control the pelvis and spine, such as those that flex and extend the hip.

Guidelines for power training

Training for power places greater demands on the body that training for muscular endurance, and it is important not to overstress the body when focusing on power development. Keep in mind that in this case, quality is more important than quantity. When your swimmers are ready to build up power, you, as a coach, should take several safety and performance considerations into account as you set up your programme. From the safety perspective, you should be aware of these issues:

• Perform explosive exercises at the start of a workout (just after the warm up) while your athletes are still fresh. Fatigued muscles can negatively affect technique and cause injury. Fatigue also limits the gains you can expect to achieve.
• Set up your training programme using exercise progressions so that exercise increase in complexity and intensity as your swimmers become more experienced with this type of exercises.
• Power exercises are meant primarily for physical mature athletes. Younger swimmers can easily handle low level plyometric exercises, such as jumping rope, but swimmers should avoid moderate and high intensity exercises until they have gone through puberty.

Muscular endurance training for swimmers

Strength training can be viewed as a form of cross training (activities other than swimming that help maintain your conditioning) since it provides a different way to stimulate and challenge the body above and beyond what you achieve in the pool. However, when building muscular endurance, be sure to approach it in the right way. Muscular endurance refers to a muscle’s ability to generate a relatively high level of force repeatedly without fatigue. This is important in every swimming race, especially for distance longer than 100 m.

Foundational and swimming-specific strength

Strength training should be geared to developing the specific attributes a swimmer needs in order to race fast. Before listing a few of the strength exercises that can be used by swimmers I’ll help you understand two basic concepts of strength training. These are the concepts of foundational and swimming-specific strength.

Standing hip drop (TRX for swimmers)

Today's post is about a TRX exercise that will help you strengthen your obliques and increase your hip mobility, while you'll be placing great demands on core stabilization. This exercise is called standing roll out. 

To set up your TRX you should fully lengthened it in single hand mode. When you're done with the set up, stand sideways to the anchor point. Now, there are two different ways you can place your feet. The first one (the one you'll see on the video) is to place one foot next to the other.

Roll out (TRX for swimmers)

Have you ever tried TRX suspension trainer to enhance your swimmers strength? Well, I have to tell you that you'll notice that your swimmers will become stronger and leaner in a way that free weights and weight machines cannot do. Today I'm going to show you a great exercise (it's a basic exercise if you are familiar with the TRX), that targets the abdominal and core stabilization muscles. This exercise is called roll out.

Spiderman crawl (dynamic warm-up)

Another great exercise you can add to your dynamic warm-up is spiderman crawl. This exercise will help you develop functional range of motion in the hips and lower back while it'll increase strength in the arms, shoulders and core. 

Lunge with rotation (dynamic warm-up)

Another great exercise you can add to your dynamic warm-up is the forward lunge with rotation. This exercise primary targets the abs, hips, and legs - thighs and builds lower body strength and core stability.

Dynamic warm-up for swimmers (knee to chest)

Today I'm going to describe another dynamic stretching exercise, which is called knee to chest, thar is great for a swimmer's dynamic warm-up. Knee to chest warms up and builds dynamic flexibility in the hamstrings and lower back. It also challenges balance and core stability.

Procedure

1. From a standing position, lift tha right knee and pull it to the chest. Simultaneously raise yourself up on the toes of your left foot.
2. Hold this position for a count of two before returning to the standing position.
3. Pull the left knee to your chest while rising up on your right foot.
4. Continue alternating right and left sides until you perform 10 to 12 repetitions on each side.

Dynamic warm-up (caterpillar progression)

Today I'm going to show you a video of a dynamic stretching exercise, called ''caterpillar'', which is great for warming up the body. This exercise improves the dynamic flexibility of the shoulders, upper back, core, hamstrings, and lower legs, and it also helps keepin the body temperature elevated.

Testing the kinetic chain (the tests)

Todays post is about the tests you can use to assess swimmers' physical strengths and weaknesses aling with the health of their kinetic chain. These test are: (1) the core stability test, (2) the shoulder flexibility test, (3) the scapula stabilization test, (4) the rotator cuff strength test, and (5) the vertical jump test.

Testing the kinetic chain

The body is set up in a series of links called the kinetic chain. It's easy to think of the body as a set of individual segments that do not interact or influence each other: you have your shoulders that you use to generate propulsion during your pull, your legs that help with the kick, the torso that assists with body rotation, and so on. However, all of these segments are in fact linked together, much like the links of a chain. What happens in one part of the body is influenced by what is happening in other parts of the body. When viewed this way, the force you can generate with your pull is affected by a variety of other factors:

Breaststroker's knee

One of the more common swimming injuries in the lower body has been termed breaststroker's knee. It is actually a strain of the medial collateral ligament on the inside of the knee and seems to result from a combination of overuse, muscular weakness, and poor flexibility. In the breaststroke, the legs are extended rapidly and rotated outward during the kick. While this position puts the knee into the best position to generate propulsion, it also places a great deal of stress of on the inside of the knee as the legs are brought together forcefully during the kick. Not surprisingly, knee pain increases with use; as training age and volume increase, so does the risk of developing knee pain. A kick that is directed straight back will place less stress on the inner side of the knee.

Flexibility for swimmers

Muscular functions is based on a a balance between strength and flexibility. Muscular strength is important, but the ability to produce force through a full range of motion is what allows you to become truly proficient in the water. You ask your body to do some pretty amazing things in the pool. Flexibility training is just as important to your performance as strenth training. Not many people think of stretching as training, but that's how you need to approach it. If you make stretching an integral part of your overall training program, you will start to see results in your performance. In addition to improving performance, adequate flexibility can prevent injuries throughout the body. 

 

Dynamic stretching

An effective warm up will increase muscle temperature and the body's core temperature, and improve blood flow through the entire system. A warm up period is important before any athletic event or performance. There should be multiple goals for the warm up, including preparing the athlete both physically and mentally for the physical activity and competition ahead.

There are three major types of stretching that have been performed prior to sporting activities:

• Static stretching is a constant stretch held at an end point anywhere between 15 sec and 5 min.
• Dynamic stretching is an activity specific functional stretching exercise that should utilize sport specific movements to prepare the body for activity. Dynamic stretching focuses on movements patterns requiring a combination of muscles, joints, and planes of motion, whereas static stretching typically focuses on a single muscle group, joint and plane of motion.
• Ballistic stretching involves active muscle effort and uses a bouncing type movement to increase the range of motion without holding the stretch at an end position. Unlike static stretching, ballistic stretching triggersthe stretch reflex and can increase the likelihood of injury in individuals who have not progressed appropriately or do not have the correct training background for this form of stretching.
  

Functional training for swimmers

Functional strength training involves performing work against resistance in such a manner that the improvements in strength directly enhance the performance of movements so that an individual's activities of daily living are easier to perform. Simply stated, the primary goal of functional training is to transfer the improvements in strength achieved in one movement to enhancing the performance of another movement by affecting the entire neuromuscular system.