Triceps: the Importance of having these developed

Former Member
Former Member
I have been reading and watching posts and replies, on the General forum, as well as Coaching forum, that seem to dismiss the importance of having developed triceps. I may be wrong, but what I surmised is that even though having a longer stroke is of great importance (and I am an advocate of a longer sroke depending upon the distance and actual stroke being swum), that many people including Kaizen making statements that a long stroke is better, there is much conclusion that "finishing" the stroke lower on the leg has several problems: 1) it takes tricep strength so avoid it and 2) finishing shorter and closer to the waist area is the way to go. Now granted, a 50 free sprint probably needs a lesser SPL than a 200 or 400, but my concern in this topic is that there may be a message to other swimmers that finishing later on the body requires more strength in the back of the arm (triceps) so avoid it. My Word: Wrong!! Every great, great swimmer I have ever seen has the arms of Hercules, both in biceps, shoulders and triceps. And even at my older age and a fatter body, the one remaining muscle group that is ripped is the triceps on my arms because they have been trained over years and carry me through even now. Having these great muscles developed continues to aid in my powerfully finishing my stroke and setting up for the next one. Triceps DO provide propulsion in the stroke finish/recovery portion of the stroke, so making sure they are developed, as well as other components of your body, is extremely important. Just one swimmer's point of view....and open for discussion..... donna
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  • Well I guess that like with anything else, that depends. Ability to do pushups probably has some correlation with ability to swim fast butterfly, since it does target arm adductors as well as triceps. Also, let us not forget that correlations work both ways. Can a swimmer that never does any pushups perform better at a pushup test than a runner that never does any pushup? Of course. Take any elite swimmer that doesn't perform any pushups, they can probably book over 60pushups in 1 min well. I'd love to see your source for this. I can do pushups forever it seems (doing enough for a few years builds up endurance), yet I have a very tough time with butterfly at all. A 25 fly is a struggle for me, distances beyond that impossible without fins and/or switching to 1-arm drills. I've seen many fast swimmer struggle to do even 10 correct pushups, and I've seen some runners knock out 70 pushups without even trying.
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  • Well I guess that like with anything else, that depends. Ability to do pushups probably has some correlation with ability to swim fast butterfly, since it does target arm adductors as well as triceps. Also, let us not forget that correlations work both ways. Can a swimmer that never does any pushups perform better at a pushup test than a runner that never does any pushup? Of course. Take any elite swimmer that doesn't perform any pushups, they can probably book over 60pushups in 1 min well. I'd love to see your source for this. I can do pushups forever it seems (doing enough for a few years builds up endurance), yet I have a very tough time with butterfly at all. A 25 fly is a struggle for me, distances beyond that impossible without fins and/or switching to 1-arm drills. I've seen many fast swimmer struggle to do even 10 correct pushups, and I've seen some runners knock out 70 pushups without even trying.
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