Swimming and Lifting

Bigger Stronger Leaner
1

There’s a competetive swim team in town, from 5yr olds all the way 18yr national competetive kids. The fellow who runs this out fit aproached me about strength training, he calls it dry land training his older kids twice a week. I’ve never worked with swimmer’s before, my expieance is with hockey, track, and more recently mma.

Here’s the problem, I would like to turn him down,even though the money’s good, because it’s out side my expieance, and I feel uncomfortable with it. we’re in a small town, and I know if I say no he’ll find someone else, and besides me there are only personal trainer’s, with weekend certs in this town. They will jump at this chance, and probably do more harm than good. That leaves me as best option I feel.

I would like to start a form to discuss this, and would really like to here from a swimming strength coach, or swimmers if possible, but if not at least here from other competent strength coaches to help me come up with somthing reasonable. I have some idea’s that I will post, and bounce off other coaches. Thanks Jake

2

Hay mate, I use to swim and play waterpolo at a top level before i got into lifting, unfortunally i never tried to do the two both at the same time and i was always training with waterpolo doing the primary goal, therefore strength > speed > size. I dont belive i can give the best answer but in my opinion:
Swimmers need to be lean and flexible
They have almost no need for strength (there resistance is water)
They need a gym program that wont effect their swimming training.

So, i would train them with a full body circuit workout possibly 3 times a week, i guess semi crossfit sytle but without worrying about olympic lifting etc. Something along the lines of

10x pullups
10x back squats
10x press ups
10x box jumps

Possibly higher reps and different movements im unsure, id keep away from islation movements though.

Hope this helps a little!

3

Thanks, i just got home, but this is line with what I was thinking, kind of the reverse from regular athletic training. Rather than strengthening the muscles they use all the time, it apears to me they’d be better off spending time in the gym training the muscles they don’t use when swimming. from an upper body stand point they appear well built from the front, and even have these wide paper thin lats, but they have no upper backs what so ever–rear delts-traps–just depth in general. They kind of curl forward, so the first thing I would do with any kid I worked with no matter what sport, is balance, and posture, rows, facepulls, and pull aparts, try to uncurl them. Anyway I’m going to have to do some reading, I was just hoping someone here had direct dealings with this. the coach and I have yet to discuss what he has in mind, he’s been doing this a long time, and might have a program in mind he just wants me to implement. I just wanted some ideas on the first visit, so i don’t seem totaly clueless :slight_smile:

4

Same as Mushie I got into lifting after I stopped swimming, so never really got the experience of what lifting works for swimming.

I have heard a couple of top swimmers (Michael Phelps and Mark Foster) say weight training was brought into their training programme. Phelps said his was brought in to help improve his sprint speed and I remember Foster saying it helped maintain a balance and improve sprint speed, though was important to prevent bulking for obvious reasons for swimmers. I would also say the training would have to be individualised to the events they swim, a 100m swimmer would require different strength, explosive demands from training than and 800m swimmer.

I do agree though with your assessment that a lot of swimmers have an imbalance with that rounding forward. A few guys who carried on swimming way after I quit, I know have had postural issues due to rounded forward shoulders. Also an ex swimmer that joined rowing at my former rowing club a couple of years had existing postural issues from swimming which made the transfer difficult. I also think for some junior swimmers (certainly in my experience) core work is neglected. A strong core with good endurance is pretty vital to swim effectively. Some people underestimate how much the trunk is actually used.

5

The Michel Phelps piece was interesting, he says he does chins/dips so he won’t bulk up, these are my go to exercises for adding upper body mass, lol. Anyway I didn’t realize weights, and swimming was so rare, and how adverse body weight was, so this is good. This also helps me feel better about not leaving these kids in the hands of a local PT, they’d use a BBing program for sure.
Here’s where I’m at, tons of core-spend atleast 50% of time on this–anti rotaional, ab wheels, planks, and standing ab work, as far as upper body-no chins, and dips-don’t want to mess with shoulders, I’m thinking mostly TRX stuff-rows, face pulls, scarecrows, and pullaparts, stick with pushups for push factor. For lower body I think some higher rep trap bar, hip thrusts, step ups, or single leg leg press. Also saomthing with a streatch factor-like skater split squats, or walking lunges. Here’s a sample program of where I’m at. He wants to train twice a week so the same or a little different I think-it’s open for debate

Sun.
KB swings—1x20
trap bar-------1x20
ab wheel—failure
TRX----scarecrow,facepull,row–mechanical drop–10–10–10
rotaional abs–either with machine, or cables—20 per side
pushups-----5 reps before failure
walking lunge with DBs----predeterminded length
knees to elbows—hanging from bar, curl up till knees touch elbows—failure

Now I’ll either run this as one big circuit, or break it into two circuits, where they run through the first one 3x, then the second one 3x. It sounds like they’ll be training as a group, so this would allow 8 staitions, for 8 kids, and we’ll run them through. Set most exercises up for 20 reps, but that will vary with strength level of athlete, as weights will probably be set.

This is where I at, but I’m very open to ideas

6

I swam and lifted and still do both just not competing. Swimming it highly depends on what type of swimmer you have sprinter or endurance? The main difference is that sprinters will need corrective exercises and strength training because the stronger you are (especially in pulling exercises and squatting) the faster you will be. Pushing off of the wall in a sprint swim contributes IMMENSELY to your time so stronger legs=better push=lower times.

The endurance swimmers really don’t benefit much from strength training in terms of their times getting better if they got better at chins or rows. Just not the nature of the game. What they do benefit from a lot is a lot of corrective exercises. For example while as a sprinters a typical workout looked like this for me: (this was done after swimming practice usually so the volume was low) 2-3 main strength exercises (bench, chins, rows) then 2-3 corrective exercises such as face pulls, elbows out rows, pushups with protraction at the top, external rotations and so on and I always finished with ab work. Swimming is also an overhead sport and I had issues with doing things like military presses and other exercises that stressed my shoulders a lot because quite often it would be too much and I would get impingement from them, so after a few bouts of this I dropped any overhead work as to not interfere with swimming. This may or may not be the case with others just something to keep an eye on.

7

Thanks Typhoon this is exactly the type of inside info I was looking for, I’ll know, and post more once I talk to coach. latter

8

[quote]AnytimeJake wrote:
The Michel Phelps piece was interesting, he says he does chins/dips so he won’t bulk up, these are my go to exercises for adding upper body mass, lol. Anyway I didn’t realize weights, and swimming was so rare, and how adverse body weight was, so this is good. This also helps me feel better about not leaving these kids in the hands of a local PT, they’d use a BBing program for sure.
Here’s where I’m at, tons of core-spend atleast 50% of time on this–anti rotaional, ab wheels, planks, and standing ab work, as far as upper body-no chins, and dips-don’t want to mess with shoulders, I’m thinking mostly TRX stuff-rows, face pulls, scarecrows, and pullaparts, stick with pushups for push factor. For lower body I think some higher rep trap bar, hip thrusts, step ups, or single leg leg press. Also saomthing with a streatch factor-like skater split squats, or walking lunges. Here’s a sample program of where I’m at. He wants to train twice a week so the same or a little different I think-it’s open for debate

Sun.
KB swings—1x20
trap bar-------1x20
ab wheel—failure
TRX----scarecrow,facepull,row–mechanical drop–10–10–10
rotaional abs–either with machine, or cables—20 per side
pushups-----5 reps before failure
walking lunge with DBs----predeterminded length
knees to elbows—hanging from bar, curl up till knees touch elbows—failure

Now I’ll either run this as one big circuit, or break it into two circuits, where they run through the first one 3x, then the second one 3x. It sounds like they’ll be training as a group, so this would allow 8 staitions, for 8 kids, and we’ll run them through. Set most exercises up for 20 reps, but that will vary with strength level of athlete, as weights will probably be set.

This is where I at, but I’m very open to ideas
[/quote]

It is good that you are taking the time to research it properly to make sure you provide the best programme to clients. Too often many PTs give the same programme to people regardless of goal. Although you can always learn from other sports and bodybuilding etc, an athletes needs will differ. For example the typical 3 x 10 reps on things like leg extension, curls, cable rows I was given when I first went into a gym was a shocking programme given what I know now. Then I remember a strength and conditioning coach telling rowers to do db curls standing on 1 leg on a balance ball thingy. It was just utterly ridiculous.

Typhoons advice is really solid. One thing I have noticed when I do occasionally go for a swim is my shoulders tire really quickly compared to when I was 11 and trained for competition. Apart from lack of muscle memory, I think a lot of this is due to the weight and bulk I now have, although I agree with Typhoon that strength training in particular helps sprinters. Mark Foster said he wish he had started some form of weight training earlier in his career in one thing I read.

9

I´m a climber, rower and former competitive sprint-swimmer.
As a climber I am the heaviest in the gang, but always been heavy so not too much of a problem…

Still train a lot of sprint-swimming, as conditioning, my experience is that the barbell has helped my speed like crazy.
Focus on some raw strength but mostly on explosive work, mostly through Olympic lifting.
I love kroc rows

Assistance wise, a lot of pullups and dips…

Every now and then I do some sprint laps together with some buddies who still compete in different levels, I might not have the endurance for it as they do, as I get torn up, but I keep their pace good.

You are doing the kids a huge favor by doing the research, if only all PT´s did that, haha

10

Obviously explosion for 100 M or less but remember you must first coach to improve. It might be wise to think outside the box/gym. If i understand right you are out of water coach so gym is not a must. They never use 1 muscle/group of muscles. Maybe 4 against 4 in a tug of war. I would focus on stuff they will enjoy, compete and push themselves with lots of muscles at a time.

An old proven trick is they fallow your lead like in a cardio class.
Everyone picks dumbells and you guide them to 8 reps of thrusters counting 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 2, 1.5, 1, 0.5, 0.4 bravo !
You get them to push themselves with the carrot that the end is coming and you keep the carrot moving to keep them pushing themselves.
In tennis Nadal became #1 in the world by keeping on pushing himself. They must do that 6 days a week in and out of water.

Remember they are young, they are resistant. You want them looking forward to their next session with you, not dragging their feet. Just like a great boxer uses his opponant against himself you will get results buy getting in their brain but if you totally focus on the muscles they might not cooperate and not benefit from being around you. Use a few jokes it keeps them listnening.

11

I used to swim at a pretty high level for a good 4 years, one thing that I would say from my experience is that firstly swimmers have very internally rotated shoulders and well developed lats. To help that and prevent injury as well improve performance I would do some ‘prehab’ work focusing on external rotation just to balance out what they do in the pool. Get some scapular retraction in their too, a good amount of rowing.

Swimmers probably don’t need much additional conditioning work out of the pool, maybe some sled pushing and pulling and loaded carries, since the stamina and endurance developed by swimmers is pretty good. I remember easily being able to get out the pool and do running and circuits for days since my work capacity was stupid.

In summary:
Shoulder prehab, common injury area from overuse, external rotation normally needing extra work
Perform rowing movements
Develop what the don’t have, this is normally strength throughout the body
Minimize overhead pressing
Perform pull ups with a neutral grip as often as possible or on rings.

That would be my two cents. Hope it is of use!

12

Thanks, this thread was started awhile back, and I’ve actually been doing pretty good with the kids for a while now, basialy what you’ve said is what I’d already settled on, with lots of shoulder prehab, and some explosive leg and back work, lots of core work, and the rower if they want to spend more time doing cardio (optional) things seem to be going well, and I’ve found a use for my TRX set up, that the BBer’s never do.

I hadn’t mentioned it on my original post, but I own the only gym in town, not just the trainer, so it has allowed me to order some specialized equipment, and set up a room where we train every Sat, we designed a non weighted program, with chins and ab work, that the swim coach can do with the kids twice a week, after swim class, at the end of the pool, and then on Sat. specialized work at my gym. Things seem to be going well, and everyone seems happy. Thanks to all !

13

[quote]Brendan1996 wrote:
I used to swim at a pretty high level for a good 4 years, one thing that I would say from my experience is that firstly swimmers have very internally rotated shoulders and well developed lats. To help that and prevent injury as well improve performance I would do some ‘prehab’ work focusing on external rotation just to balance out what they do in the pool. Get some scapular retraction in their too, a good amount of rowing.

Swimmers probably don’t need much additional conditioning work out of the pool, maybe some sled pushing and pulling and loaded carries, since the stamina and endurance developed by swimmers is pretty good. I remember easily being able to get out the pool and do running and circuits for days since my work capacity was stupid.

In summary:
Shoulder prehab, common injury area from overuse, external rotation normally needing extra work
Perform rowing movements
Develop what the don’t have, this is normally strength throughout the body
Minimize overhead pressing
Perform pull ups with a neutral grip as often as possible or on rings.

That would be my two cents. Hope it is of use![/quote]

What is the reason for minimizing overhead pressing? Is it due to the high use of your shoulders when swimming? Just curious.

14

With swimmers we did more rehab and preventative work with weights rather than “strength” focus.
So alot of stretching, rotary cuff work, alot of rowing and ab work.
Most of the dryland was abwork.
Yea you wanna avoid alot of overhead presses just because alot of swimmers have shoulder problems and it changes your stroke.

15

[quote]back211 wrote:
With swimmers we did more rehab and preventative work with weights rather than “strength” focus.
So alot of stretching, rotary cuff work, alot of rowing and ab work.
Most of the dryland was abwork.
Yea you wanna avoid alot of overhead presses just because alot of swimmers have shoulder problems and it changes your stroke.[/quote]

I agree, that you should avoid pressing movements.

They get a lot of shoulder training from just swimming.

heavy chin-ups will help for sprinting as lats are a big part of the speed.