5 Important Rules In Dryland Training For Swimmers

dryland training for swimmers

These are the 5 “rules” we consider when we’ve designed training programs for swimmers. No matter whether we are talking about the developing swimmers, Collegians, or Olympic Gold Medalists we’ve trained at Velocity Sports Performance, these rules always apply.

Swimming Is Unique

An elite competitive swimmer is like any other athlete in many ways. They need a good foundation of coordination and basic strength throughout the entire body. This base of athleticism is useful for coordinating general motion and basic physical health.

However, swimming is unique among athletic movements. No other sport is performed in another substance and without contact with the ground.  

Yes, there are sports like rowing or kayak which propel a vessel through water. There are also sports like skiing or snowboard where athletes ride over snow. Or speed skating, hockey, and skeleton which slide over ice.

First, in all those other sports you get to breathe. You have to get your face out of the water to breathe in swimming.

Second, there is the fact that almost everything else has movement produced or controlled by producing force and directing it through the feet into the ground.

A swimmer propels themselves through water primarily with the upper body instead of through the legs into the ground. They have to manage the laws of not just physics, but specifically hydrodynamics to swim.

1. The Pool Rules

Since humans are not native to the water, swimmers need to spend a lot of hours in the pool. They need to be in the water developing and maintaining their feel for the for it and efficiency moving through it.

For all training, that becomes the priority. They need to be in the pool.

While an athlete’s sport is always the priority, it’s even more true for a swimmer. It is more important than any dryland, core, conditioning, or strength program. They don’t get the same “cross-training” benefits from doing something on land.

Other ground-based athletes have the advantage that daily locomotion and lifelong development give them. 

It’s an added foundation for most athletes’ sporting movements. They are used to being on the ground, with-in gravity, and producing forces, and getting kinesthetic feedback.

Swimmers aren’t that fortunate. To get those benefits, they have to be in the water.  

Hours upon hours in the pool are required for developing the movement skill and specific conditioning need to excel in the sport. When designing and delivering performance training for swimmers, this always has to be kept in mind.

One of the strongest Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for swimmers can be as simple as healthy hours in the pool swimming.  

That brings us to the 2nd priority. Keeping them healthy.

2. Stay Healthy

If a swimmer is injured and can’t swim, they have broken rule number one. Keeping them in the pool is the priority but keeping them injury and pain-free goes beyond just being in the pool.

Shoulder Pain In Swimmers

Shoulder pain, injury, and dysfunction are prevalent in swimmers.

From a study; Epidemiology of Injuries and Prevention Strategies in Competitive Swimmers :

“Shoulder pain is the most frequent orthopedic injury in swimmers, with a reported prevalence between 40% and 91%… Swimmers at the elite level may swim up to 9 miles per day (more than 2,500 shoulder revolutions). Muscle fatigue of the rotator cuff, upper back, and pectoral muscles caused by repetitive movement may result in microtrauma due to the decrease of dynamic stabilization of the humeral head.”

Epidemiology of Injuries and Prevention Strategies in Competitive Swimmers
Sports Health, May 2012

These microtraumas, in turn, can lead to a swimmer’s shoulder symptoms.

LEARN MORE: FUNCTIONAL ANATOMY OF THE SHOULDER

Upper Body Propulsion In Swimming

That’s because the majority of propulsion in swimming strokes is from the upper body. Only the breaststroke or the underwater dolphin kick (the fifth stroke) have significant contributions to propulsion from the lower body.

A ground-based athlete produces a ground reaction force with the lower body. It is directed through the center of mass to take sports actions.  

A swimmer instead will generate forces against the water that must propel them. In most strokes, the majority (80-90%) of propulsion is generated by the upper limbs.

The shoulder is unique. It has a huge degree of mobility. In fact, the shoulder is the most mobile joint in the body. 

This allows for an extensive range of motion through multiple planes of motion. Unfortunately, the shoulder is also inherently unstable due to this mobility.

Conversely, since it’s highly mobile, this joint also needs lots of stability. The shoulder complex has to transfer all the force generated in the upper extremity into the torso. That means all of the small muscles that stabilize the glenohumeral and scapula-thoracic joints need to function well.

For a swimmer’s shoulder to function well those muscles need to fire in a coordinated manner, have enough strength to stabilize and transfer force, and the endurance to do it for thousands upon thousands of repetitions.

That’s a big ask and part of why there are so many painful shoulders in swimmers.

3. Streamline

training for a swimming streamline
Dryland training for swimmers should emphasize torso and pelvic control to maintain a streamline position

Athletes and coaches need to understand that technique trumps strength. The amount of drag in the water is a bigger factor in swimming velocity than propulsion.  

Think about that for a moment. Minimizing drag, which requires maintaining the body’s streamlined position, is more important than propulsion.

Hydrodynamics tells us why. 

The faster a swimmer goes, the more drag there is. It goes up exponentially. So anything that breaks the streamline and creates drag has an exponential impact to slow the swimmer.

On the other side of this problem, is the fact that propulsion gets harder as you swim faster. 

The faster a swimmer’s hand moves through the water, the more resistance the water creates. It’s also exponential.  

So the faster you go, the more drag slows you down and the harder it is to push the water.

Training for A Swimming Streamline

To minimize drag in the water, athletes should strive to maintain an elongated spine and streamline position, as well as display advanced lumbopelvic control.  

Staying streamlined and minimizing drag in the water is primarily the realm of the pool and the swim coach. 

However, on dryland, we can create the prerequisites the swimmer needs for this.

For the prone strokes of freestyle, butterfly, and breast, this requires the entire posterior chain to help the lower half of the body from dropping. The posterior chain includes all the muscles along the back of the body from toes to the head.

Exercises that link the entire posterior are key for swimmers.

Swimmers also need a foundation of strength and stability in their pelvis and torso.  

The “core” of the body can be defined in many ways. For the purposes of the swimmer, we are defining it 360 degrees from the pelvis through the scapula.

During each swimming stroke, they have to manage rotational forces from the upper body and into the torso. They have to keep their streamline from the head, through the torso, and down into the pelvis and lower body. Any break in this chain will lead to increased drag.

This is why comprehensive core training is key. There is a place for isolated exercises of the core and pelvis, but it’s the multi-muscle/joint exercises that build connectedness need for swimmers.

4. Starts/Turns

training for explosive swimming start
Starts are an important part of the race that dryland training can greatly influence

Whether it’s swimming, sprinting in track & field, or a BMX event, everyone wants a great start. 

In swimming, the opportunity to push off the blocks, overcome inertia, and generate horizontal momentum can be incredibly important.  So we need to consider this when designing training programs for swimming.

Turns are the same. 

Each turn is an opportunity to use the large muscles of the lower body to generate propulsion and build speed. Unlike sprint distances that have few turns, long-distance races have many, each an opportunity to gain speed.

Entering the water off the start, and coming off the turns are the fastest velocities during any event. 

Starts are the fastest, and turns are second. To maximize the benefit, swimmers need power in their lower bodies to be explosive in both.

For sprints, the start (to 15m) makes up a large portion of the entire race and drops as the distance increases. In shorter sprints, this can be over 25% of the race so you better get it right.

Turns on the other hand (5m in, 5 m out), take up a larger portion the longer the race is. This makes sense because the longer the race, the more total turns there are. In a 1500m race, the turn time can be 30-40% of the race.  

So making the most of these is critical in a sport where hundredths of a second make a difference.

Explosive Training For Swimmers

The swim start, and a good turn, require the athlete to explode from a static or relatively static position. In this position, the ankle, knee, and hip are all bent and ready to explode off the wall. 

Although the swimmer is horizontal in the water, their alignment and force vector is like a vertical jump.

During turns the position and biomechanics are very similar to a vertical jump

We need to highlight the static position here because there are differences in the strength qualities required when exploding from static positions.

The static muscle contraction

In many athletic movements, the athlete will perform a counter-movement first. This is the bending of the knees and hips while they dip down before a vertical jump. This occurs before they begin pushing back up explosively, and it gives them added force into the ground.

For a start, the swimmer is in their start position, knee and hips bent, and muscles tensed ready to fire. They need to immediately explode forward on the gun so they don’t waste valuable time.  

It’s a static position. 

They cant take advantage of that added force from the countermovement.

A turn is essentially the same. If they execute the flip turn well, their feet are near/touching the wall, with the knees and hips already bent. They don’t perform a countermovement sinking closer into the wall.

When they have contact with the wall they need to instantly generate high levels of force to explode off the wall. All of this has an impact on their training needs.

This lack of countermovement means when training for explosiveness in the lower body means they will need to have a high rate of force development.

Rate of force development is the ability to turn on the muscle quickly to achieve high forces in a small time. It can be developed with explosive exercises including plyometric jumps, medicine ball throws, and explosive weight training.

5. Propulsion

Ground-based athletes develop forces from the ground up, in a coordinated extension of the hips, knees, and ankle. The summation of these forces propels them forward.

Similarly, swimmers must develop a coordinated, multi-segment flexion from the upper body through the hips to summate the highest propulsive forces.

The dryland training of swimmers needs to include elements that emphasize the coordinated application of strength from the fingertips through the core and to the toes. 

This is the “tip to toes” connected concept.

A key feature of “connected” exercises for swimmers is that the core and hips are controlled for stability at the same time while the upper extremity generates power in pulling and pushing moments. This goes back to the earlier rule that streamline is more important than propulsion.

So in dryland training, we shouldn’t sacrifice core control and body position for more power. We also strive to develop the forces and power with full-body control.

For an exercise to develop “connectedness” the following qualities need to be developed;

  • Athlete exhibits pelvis and spinal control during movement
  • Athlete demonstrates scapular control during strength application
  • Athlete develops pulling tension across multi-segmental, muscle/fascial lines

To achieve this swimmers should emphasize multi muscle/joint exercises. Gymnastic type fundamentals on rings and parallettes are a great way to build a solid foundation and always connect the core and shoulder complex.  

Kettlebell exercises also are a great tool to emphasize the connection and develop stability in the shoulder girdle.

Training Smart for Swimmers

To design an effective training program for swimmers, you have to first understand the demands of the sport.  Many of the same training methods used for other athletes will pay dividends for swimmers as well.

However, there are unique aspects to swimming we have to consider as swimmers reach higher levels.

Hydrodynamics are the driving factor and only when we understand their impact on the swimmer can a program be “swimming specific”.

The key concepts are;

  • The time in the pool rules all else
  • Healthy swimmers are in the pool and capable of efficient technique
  • Maintaining a streamline is more important than greater propulsion
  • The starts and turns are the faster parts of the race and make up large portions of it
  • Propulsion in swimming develops from the fingertips and connects through the core

Building training for a swimmer begins at a young age by developing all-around athletes. On top of that athletic foundation, dryland then continues to become more swimming-specific by following the rules above.

There are many ways to train swimmers, but to be effective, the rules need to be followed.

Training Swimmers with Connected Exercises

swimming specific exercises

Of course a swimmer wants swimming-specific exercises. Every athlete wants exercises and training methods that give them the most bang for their buck. In a sport as unique as swimming, this is even more important. 

While it seems like common sense that sport-specific exercises are needed, there is more to consider. The key is to find the proper blend of general and specific exercises. This is true in every level of swimming.
 

Athletic Foundations

An elite competitive swimmer is first and foremost an athlete. Therefore, they need a good foundation of general strength and coordination throughout the entire body. This base of athleticism is relevant in coordinating general motion and basic physical health.
 
Working with elite swimmers in the US and internationally, we see this fact reinforced time and again. It impacts the training for a young developing swimmer. General strength and athleticism are the foundation. They build overall capacity and resiliency to injury.
 
 

Swimming Is Unique

Unlike most other athletes, the swimmer operates in a non-ground based environment. The main force they battle is not gravity. This is unique.
 
The swimmer’s movement challenge is maximizing propulsion in the water and minimizing drag. Because of this, there are some unique challenges for training the swimmer.
 
A human who is foreign to the water environment. Subsequently, they need maximum exposure to the water to optimize their “feel”.
 
Feel for the water is a hard-to-define quality. It’s the ability to generate the largest propulsion with the body extremities against the resistance of water. The laws of hydrodyamincs mean the faster you move through water, the harder it is to push.
 

Summation of Forces

Most athletes produce a ground reaction force. This force is directed from the feet and legs through the center of mass. The swimmer is the opposite. The force is applied through the hands and then transfers through the upper body to the center of mass.
 
That force is not applied against a solid mass like the ground. A swimmer must generate forces against the water that must will propel them. In most strokes, the majority (85-90%) of propulsion is generated by the upper limbs.
 
Ground-based athletes focus on developing summation of forces and triple extension from the ground up. Swimmers must develop this same coordinated, multi-segment flexion from the upper body down through the hips.
 

Connected

Dryland training of swimmers needs to emphasize the coordinated application of strength. It should be coordinated from the fingertips, through the core, and to the toes. This is the “tip to toes” connected concept.
 
A key feature of “connected” exercises for swimmers is that the core and hips are controlled for stability. This happens at the same time the upper extremity generates power in pulling and pushing moments.
 
Connected is as much an intention in the exercises as an outcome. To train this quality of coordination, athletes need to actively bring it into each exercise. For an exercise to develop “connectedness” the following qualities need to be developed;
  • Exhibit pelvis and spinal control
  • Demonstrate scapular control
  • Develops pulling tension across multi-segmental, muscle/fascial lines

Sample Connected swimming specific exercises:

  • Gymnastic Ring and Bar exercises – front levers, L-hangs, pullup variations
  • Cable based pulling/chops/lifts with whole body engagement
  • Gymnastic Parallettes exercises
  • Kettlebell Swings, GetUps and Windmills
  • Various medball throws, slams
  • Isometric whole body holds – prone, supine, sidelying.

Core

The “core” of the body can be defined in many ways. For the purposes of the swimmer, we are defining it 360 degrees from the pelvis through the scapula.
 
Athletes need to be able to control their spine and pelvic position. Whether it’s disturbed by internal muscle forces or external. This is core stability.
 
A swimmer’s actions in the upper and lower body connect back to the core. Without adequate core stability, the spine and pelvis can be pulled out of place.
 
Many athletes need to develop core stability in isolation first. They needs this before they can produce it during multi-segmental movement. This is one reason why core stability is both a foundation and ongoing focus for swimmers.
 
Swimming-specific exercises should strive to maintain an elongated spine and streamline position. This is paramount in the pool when they apply force. As a result, it should be a goal in many of the dryland and strength exercises.
 
Even in upper body exercises, this can be included. While performing upper body work, athletes should maintain lumbopelvic control as well.
 

Swimming specific exercise for core strength & stability

  • Fundamental breathing patterns & resets
  • Ground based animal patterns
  • Active mobility & joint resiliency – scapula, spine, pelvis, hips
  • Anti-Rotation core exercises
  • Pilates
  • Scapula stability

Training the Swimmer

Swimmers of all levels need dryland training. They need a balance of both general and swimming specific exercises. Swimming-specific exercises are much more than exercises that just look like swimming.
 
To summarize, for exercises to produce swimming specific improvements, they need to address the core functions and be connected. Strength and power developed in this manner helps transfer to improvements in the pool.

Strength Training Is Injury Prevention

strength training helps prevent injury

Stay In The Game

In elite sports there is a lot of emphasis put on injury prevention.  It doesn’t matter how good you are if you are sitting on the bench, hurt.

Teams and athletes look to us to reduce their risk of injury.  We know there are many parts to injury prevention, but the foundation is often strength.

For the last 20 years, Velocity Sports Performance has known that good strength training is injury prevention.

  • Our experience with athletes in 11 Olympic Games backs it up.
  • Our experience with thousands of professional athletes backs it up.
  • A growing body of scientific research is starting to catch up.

is Youth strength training safe

RELATED:  Is Youth Strength Training Safe?

 

You need to know: strength is more than just weight on a barbell

Types of Strength
When you speak about strength or being strong, what do you imagine? An athlete hoisting a barbell loaded with heavy weight in a Squat or Bench Press? How about an Olympic weightlifter explosively moving 400 pounds from the floor to over his head in a single movement?
 
These types of things are often considered “strong,” but what about other sporting actions? How about sprinting at full speed, jumping high, or throwing and kicking?  Most people become unsure whether or how strength is part of these movements.

Defining Strength

What is strength in general and specifically for athletes?  Strength is all about physics, and we are talking about Newton’s 2nd Law of Motion: in a nutshell, Force is equal to Mass multiplied by Acceleration.
 
Strength is a way of talking about the application of force. An athlete can apply force to the ground, to an opponent, to a ball or other piece of sports equipment, or even internally to his or her own body.

Mass & Magnitude

The mass in this equation is what’s being moved. As an athlete that could be things like:
  • a ball or stick in your hands, to
  • your own body weight (jumping, sprinting and cutting)
  • a 300-pound linemen
  • 500 pounds on a barbell

Acceleration and Time

One thing most people recognize is that in sports, doing things quicker is usually an advantage. Athletes don’t have unlimited time to apply force.
 
Acceleration is how fast something increases its speed. The faster the acceleration, and thus the speed, the shorter the time.
 
In sprinting or agility, your foot is in contact with the ground for a limited time. In jumping, there is limited time, and doing it faster than your opponent can be key.  When throwing or kicking a ball or swinging a racket, bat or stick, you want it moving as fast as possible.
 
Speed of movement matters.

Muscle Action

In physics, force is what we call a “vector.” This means it has a magnitude (how much?) and a direction (which way?). Direction matters because forces can be applied in different directions for different effects.
 
One thing to consider about direction is whether the muscle is lengthening or shortening during the contraction. When it’s contracting and getting shorter (e.g., bringing the bar up in a Bicep Curl), it’s called a “concentric” action.
 
If you’re applying force while the muscle lengthens (e.g., while slowly lowering the bar in the 2nd half of the Bicep Curl), it’s called an “eccentric” action.
 
Types of muscle contractions:
  • CONCENTRIC = Shortening
  • ECCENTRIC = Lengthening
Eccentric and concentric strength are not the same. The same muscles may be used, the same structures and contractile proteins, and the same lints moved. Yet, the brain uses different motor control strategies. For the same action concentrically or eccentrically the motor control is different.

Physiology & Motor Control

Another important thing to understand about strength for athletes is where it comes from.  Often people equate strength with bigger muscles. This is for good reason, because they are related, although not perfectly and not for all types.
 
Generating force with your body is a combination of the structure of your muscles (size and biological content) and your neuromuscular control. The muscle is your engine to develop horsepower, but your brain is the driver that decides how hard you push the pedal.

Sport-Specific Strength

When we analyze an athlete in his or her sport, we observe various forms of movement. Speed, agility, jumping, throwing, kicking, hitting, twisting, landing and so on are movement caused by how an athlete generates force.
 
It follows that all types of athletic movement are based on how you generate and apply strength.
 
Still, how can everything be about strength? Is what your muscles do squatting a full barbell different from what they do when you throw a baseball that only weighs ounces?
 
The answer to understanding strength is actually composed of different combinations of Newton’s 2nd Law. Force = Mass multiplied by Acceleration

Playing with the Equation

In different movements we manipulate the 3 parts of the equation—Force, Mass and Acceleration (Speed & Time). The we consider the direction of contraction (eccentric or concentric). Now we have a way to analyze sports movements and strength types.
 
We use this movement-based approach to simplify complex biomechanics into 6 specific types of strength.

6 Types of Strength

Max Strength

This is the basic capability of the muscle to produce a forceful contraction. In application it also involves coordinating multiple muscle groups across multiple joints. The amount of force that can be generated regardless of the time it takes to develop and apply it is called max strength. This is what we call this type of strength even when he or she is under sub-maximal loads.
Maximum strength
Using a car analogy, imagine a big industrial dump truck. It may not move fast, but it can move big loads.

Eccentric Strength

As mentioned before, motor control is different if the action is concentric or eccentric. The capacity to develop high levels of eccentric force is key in sports. Actions such as landing from a jump, stopping, changing direction, winding up to throw a ball and swinging a bat are all eccentric in nature.
When we come to cars, think brakes.  Eccentric strength is like having great brakes on a car to handle those high speeds. An F1 racer has to have great brakes so he or she can go into turns as fast as possible before braking.

Strength-Speed Power

Most sports applications of force involves doing it quickly. Faster is usually better. This is where power comes in. Power is equal to the velocity times the force. Increasing either force or the speed its applied will lead to more power.
strength speed
When an athlete applies force rapidly to a larger load (e.g., blocking another lineman or pushing a bobsled), it’s what we term Strength-Speed Power. “Strength” is first in the name because it’s the bigger component in generating the power. This is like a NASCAR racer who can apply a lot of torque (force), moving the car even at high speeds.

Speed-Strength Power

Here it’s the “speed” of movement (or short time of force application) that is the larger factor in generating the power. Think of an athlete swinging a bat, throwing a ball, or applying force to the ground during high velocity sprinting.
The racing analogy is more akin to motorcycle racing—still applying force at high speeds (like NASCAR), but against much lighter loads.

Rate of Force Development

This is the drag racer. In a drag race, the goal is to go from 0 mph to full speed in as little time as possible. This is the same quality that creates quickness in an athlete. Rapid movement of the limbs, a quick release of the ball throwing or a shot in hockey, fast feet for soccer. Being able to rapidly generate force, regardless of whether the force level is high is known as Rate of Force Development.
Rate of Force Development
A drag racer coming off the line and getting up to speed as fast as possible is a good car analogy.

Reactive Strength

This one’s a combo. It’s a fast eccentric action coupled with a high RFD force. Think of rapid footwork, or a quick step to change direction and juke an opponent. Or the second quick jump when a basketball player comes down and goes back up quickly to get a rebound.
We use a motocross bike as the analogy. Because it has high Rate of Force Development with eccentric-type landings of bumps that gives it that “springy” quality.

Developing Strength that’s Functional

At the end of the day, athletes want the type of strength that will help them perform at the highest level and gives them the resilience to stay healthy.
 
Every athlete needs a base across all six types of strength. While it seems to make sense to go straight to the specific type of strength for your sport, it’s not the best strategy.
 
 
Doing that actually limits development and long-term potential. During early stages of strength training, a broad base of strength is important. Even at the elite levels of sport, athletes mix strength types during different parts of the year.
 
As you progress in your development and level of competition, you begin to focus on the specific qualities. Focusing on the strength types more important to your sport, your position, and even your individual genetics and style of play.
 
Strength is much more than how much you can lift on the barbell.