Dryland Training For Swimmers

What are you guys doing out there or what questions do you have? This is what I did today. I typically do a 11/2 workout like this 2x wk. I used to alternate swim and dryland days, but now I try to swim 5x wk. I workout 7 days/ wk, with the 7th day being easy. My swims are typically 11/4 - 11/2 hrs. : -Treadmill, walk fast for 20 minutes- Warm up for 10 minutes @ 4mph. Next 10 minutes are 1 minute each at 4.2 mph, 4.4 mph, 4.6 mph. Repeat, etc. - Elliptical 15 minutes @ around 125 strides/min - Recumbent bike 15 minutes - Nautilus weight circuit for legs & torso (2 sets of 12 reps - Dumbells for arms, upper back, shoulders (Swimming Anatomy book) (2 sets of 12 reps) - 200 crunches of various types (PT recommended for past back surgery) - Other various Swimming Anatomy book exercises specifically for breaststroke - Stretches recommended in Jan/Feb 2010 Swimmer Magazine - Stretches and exercises for ankles and feet recommended for past tarsal tunnel syndrome problem. - Stretches recommended by PT for past Thoracic Outlet Syndrome surgery on shoulder If I don't get interrupted, I am able to move along with my plan with no breaks in between, except to refill my water bottle. And, I can get it done in 11/2 hrs. :D

Other various Swimming Anatomy book exercises specifically for breaststroke That's where you're going to get my vote to really start looking. Good to see you have some plyo implemented in your workout. Book Link: Swimming Anatomy - Amazon.com

If we're going to talk sets (please note these were all set up by my trainer - I'm not a masochist - just doing what I'm told): I lift 6x a week. 3 circuits performed 3x per lift. Each circuit consists of hitting each muscular group for strength and then a plyo (or two, if I'm ambitious) and finally a core activity (again, or two if I'm ambitious). I perform each muscle group 2x a week. So I have a legs day, arms day and a "Chest/Shoulders/Back" day. Each lift takes between an hour to 45 minutes. My lifting program is a conditioning program - so my lifts are in sets of 12, with the exception of core which can range from 15 to 50 (depending on what needs to be done) My rest day is generally saturday - even then I'm allowed to do cardio; I usually don't - I sleep. Outside of that - I perform at least 1 cardio activity per day (Swimming counts as a cardio according to my trainer). So if I'm not swimming on that day (T/Th/Su) I will either run (M/F) or play basketball (sprints) However - most importantly - and something that should be stressed to everyone: all of the dryland + swimming + other cardio in the world is worthless without good nutrition and enough sleep.

However - most importantly - and something that should be stressed to everyone: all of the dryland + swimming + other cardio in the world is worthless without good nutrition and enough sleep. Good point! :applaud: I am worthless without good sleep, that's for sure. I need a good, solid 8 hours of :bed: to be useful for anything worthwhile. And, that was my problem at Nationals. My sleep wasn't good going into it and it didn't get good again until several days after. It's not that I didn't try; I allowed plenty of time for sleep, but it was due to my heat intolerance issues and a couple of other things out of my control. As for nutrition, right again. Good nutrition IS in my control and I do a darn good job of it. But, having said that, I do allow for my chocolate from time to time... :bliss:But, even that, I cut out for several weeks leading up to Nationals- then splurged on my cruise.:D

I do train a lot on the cardiovascular side, but to an extent that is detrimental for swimming. So I won't include it as my swim specific dryland stuff. All I do is 15min of swim cords prior ever swim workout + weights once/week as: - 2 sets of 8-10 squats @ relatively low weight. Aimed at injury prevention for breaststroke kicking mostly - 2 sets of 12pull up / 12 dips non stop - 2 sets of fly specific pulling (using a wide grip bar on a pulley machine) Injury prevention for fly. Found out that too much fly would hurt my arm adductors. Low weight, high rep - 2 sets of Nautilus Fly machine (same reason as for the exercise above). Low weight, high reps. Very very high and wide grip (enough to put me in troubles a bit, just like that front-quadrant portion of the fly pulling) - 2 sets of Shoulder Press (that's for aesthetic, nice round shoulders look good I find), and a bit for injury prevention there again - 2 sets Triceps extensions - Abdominal work The whole thing takes no more than 45min, and no more than 2 days to recuperate from since I keep everything relatively low weight. I usually swim the same day, after the workout, doing long steady work.

I will have to pick up that book - always good to get antoher point of view. We train all of our swimmers under the philosophy that core stability and rotation play a huge role in improving technique and producing power in the water. What do you guys think?

I will have to pick up that book - always good to get antoher point of view. We train all of our swimmers under the philosophy that core stability and rotation play a huge role in improving technique and producing power in the water. What do you guys think? That book is "THE" book about dry land training for swimming. As far as core goes - I would go as far to say that one NEEDS a strong core to swim well. (Strong of course being relative to body weight and build). The rest of it (rotation and stability) comes from building proper technique on top of that strong core that you're building.

With masters swimmers, we focus upon restoring lost movement literacy. Quite simply, most swimmers (especially masters, but age group as well) have fundamental movement dysfunctions on land that make efficient movement very difficult in the water. If you can't move efficiently on land in a sterile environment with no temporal parameters, your chances of success probably won't improve when we make you answer to the pace clock, take your oxygen away, and inject your muscles with metabolic waste products as the aquatic workload increases. Dryland conditioning must support the technical elements you are trying to achieve in the water. Otherwise, you are simply adding power to dysfunction. Dysfunction is a pretty strong term, so let me briefly describe how we identify it. We use both the Functional Movement Screen and the rotational sport screening tools developed by the Titleist Performance Institute in coordination with the Functional Movement Screen founders. Each land-based screening tool looks at some aspect of your fundamental movement ability. We can determine dysfunction based upon how you perform in each of these basic screening moves in a controlled environment. Think of screening as like an eye chart or a blood pressure exam. The blood pressure exam determines whether your blood pressure is above or below a certain known risk factor level. A low blood pressure doesn't tell us whether you fit in terms of cardiovascular performance. Likewise, a high blood pressure doesn't tell us whether the cause is short term stress or a major coronary blockage. However, the blood pressure exam is effective at identifying those in the population who are at risk for serious conditions. The same applies to basic movement ability...for example, if you can pass the shoulder screenings, it doesn't mean that your arm mechanics will be great in the water, but if you can't pass the shoulder screenings it means you are at greater risk of injury when attempting complex sport specific movements involving increased load. Even if you manage to keep yourself free of injury with fundamental movement dysfunction, it often requires you to use inefficient compensations such as calling upon your "prime-mover" muscles to act as stabilizers or calling upon your stabilizing muscles to act as "prime-movers". Note, just because something is inefficient doesn't mean it should be changed. With experienced athletes, it is sometimes necessary to take an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach. Ultimately, this is a strategic decision to be made by the coach, athlete, and any support staff (dryland coach, PT/chiro) involved in the process. The term "functional training" has become quite the buzzword in recent years, but has unfortunately become bastardized by many of the clowns that populate the training world. The term "functional" has become so broad that it often includes any body weight exercise performed with high repetitions for long enough to make you feel sore in muscles that you think should be sore (see, e.g., Boot Camp Blast-o-robics class). We should define "functional" not by what the workout looks like, but instead "what does it produce." Jumping up and down from boxes CAN be a functional exercise for developing explosiveness and most would consider it to be more functional for athletics than strapping yourself into a machine and cranking away. However, if you have some fundamental movement limitation, one of two things will happen if we give you any advanced exercise. First, you might use poor mechanics. Second, you might use good mechanics but use inefficient motor-neural pathways to achieve the good mechanics. If your knees collapse inward during your jump landings, you really aren't improving your "function" unless your standard of functional is to simply move inefficiently with greater power. Grif has posted a pretty intense workout and I am sure he has a great sense of his athletes' ability and very rigorous technical standards for these exercises when supervising workouts. I just want to make sure that everyone holds themselves to these high standards in their dryland workouts and doesn't simply shop around for novel exercises. As physical therapist extraoridinaire Gray Cook notes, if you shop around for exercises without screening and assessing basic movement ability, it is like throwing a bunch of letters against a wall and hoping that a dictionary will emerge. What is more important than the exercises to improve function is finding out what is causing the DYS-fucntion in the first place (whether a lifestyle factor or current exercise selection). Remove the bad before adding the good.

For example - we shouldn't be doing the same sets, reps, and loads 365 days a year just like we shouldn't do the same swim workout 365 days a year. Why don't you post some dryland workouts in the Workouts Section? Or do a blog?

One of the things that I beleive is most important when I train my swimmers in the gym is using periodization - just as we do in the pool. For example - we shouldn't be doing the same sets, reps, and loads 365 days a year just like we shouldn't do the same swim workout 365 days a year. To peak - you must peak ALL aspects fo your training.