I was a competitive swimmer for about a decade, finishing my swimming career as a sprinter for my NCAA Division 1 college team.
During that time, I tried a LOT of different dry-land training to support my time in the pool: cycling, running, yoga, pilates, and even tae-bo (hey, it was the 90s!).
And I discovered that there was actually one thing that consistently helped me improve my speed, power, and endurance in the water (hint: it wasn’t kickboxing videos).
The secret to unlocking your full potential in the water? Strength training.
Swimmers understand that consistency is key to making progress in fitness. So if you’re thinking of adding strength training to your routine, don’t expect instant results after just one gym session. Instead, approach it as a long-term investment in your performance.
Below, we’ll discuss how adding strength training to your routine can help you swim faster and more efficiently. A key component of that is consistency, so we’ll also review the benefits that come with that, including: habit formation, progress, motivation, and mental health improvements.
Ready to dive in? (Pun intended; I had to!) Read on!
We know that strength plays a role in swimming. Stronger muscles can improve your kick, your stroke power, and can boost your overall performance by supporting improvements in speed and efficiency through your starts, turns, and finishes, as well as your clean swimming.
This all sounds great, right? Well as you might expect, strength training is a way to grow your muscles, or improve your strength, and see results in the pool.
But did you know that strength training provides even more benefits than just muscle growth?
It’s true! Strength training can provide significant benefits, both physical and otherwise, that can support you in and out of the pool, including:
Let’s zero in on these last two. Taken together, improved stability and flexibility, and enhanced recovery, are a recipe for success when it comes to injury prevention and recovery.
Like many competitive athletes, swimmers are no strangers to performance-related injuries. A five-year study examining injury prevalence in Division 1 NCAA swimmers found that the most common injury among college swimmers is a shoulder or upper arm injury. But lower back injuries and neck injuries were also frequently reported, especially from swimmers specializing in butterfly and breaststroke.
One way to prevent injuries is by focusing on safely building up the strength, stability, and flexibility of those muscle groups that are most frequently utilized in swimming.
Those muscle groups include:
We’ve talked pretty broadly about how strength training can improve swimming performance, but let’s dig into the specifics next.
There are two performance areas that strength training can help enhance for swimmers:
Let’s start with improving your power and speed.
Studies have shown that strength training improves swimmers’ power.
But if you’re still unsure, think about the ways that your body moves while you’re in the pool: you’re diving off the blocks; you’re using your arms, legs, and core in different ways depending on your stroke; you’re at the wall turning and pushing off.
Could any of these movements benefit from increased muscle strength? Of course!
Studies have also shown that a combination of strength and endurance training had an impactful correlation on swimmers’ endurance and stamina. This is especially important for middle- and long-distance swimmers.
It’s hard to know exactly what the relationship is between strength training and endurance / stamina, but anecdotal and other evidence suggests that adding strength training into a swim training routine can improve both your power/speed and endurance/stamina, though of course it depends on your stroke specialization and typical race length.
Ready for incorporating strength training into your swimming training schedule? Let’s talk strategies.
Not sure where to start? A personal trainer can help you build a strength routine that enhances your swimming performance while reducing injury risk.
You may have been swimming for so long that you don’t remember when you first learned to use a kickboard or blow bubbles under the water. But I guarantee you that before you swam your first race, you had to learn those basics. And that very first race you swam? It was slow. Of course it was! You were a beginner.
So when you start incorporating strength training into your schedule, it’s a good idea to approach it as a beginner: start with the basics, and go slow.
What do I mean by starting with the basics and going slow?
Well, you might start incorporating strength training into your routine by focusing on bodyweight exercises. These are exercises that don’t require any equipment, and they’re great for people who don’t have any experience with strength training. That means you don’t need to go to the gym, which can sometimes be intimidating for a beginner.
Bodyweight exercises are also a great place to start because they often mimic the kinds of physical movements we do everyday, and for swimmers, that includes time in the water.
For example, check out this bodyweight exercise: the half squat. Does that movement look familiar? It should, because it’s the exact same motion you go through every time you push off the wall. Doing bodyweight exercises like this outside of the water can increase the power of your turns in the pool.
If you’re already comfortable doing bodyweight exercises, maybe you want to add in resistance bands or free weights. Whatever you choose to do, as you add in strength training to your routine, focus on incorporating strength training sessions slowly but consistently, and maintaining good form.
What might this look like? If you’re in the water for an hour five times a week, maybe add in 20 minutes of strength training one or two days a week to start. Listen to your body; if it feels like you could go for a longer strength training session, or want to add in an additional session, feel free to try it out.
But don’t push yourself too hard in the gym. Remember, strength training is meant to supplement and support your swimming training. And we definitely want to avoid over-training, which can increase the risk of injury.
Maybe this all sounds appealing, but you’ve heard some myths about strength training that make you a little hesitant to give it a try.
For example, there’s a persistent myth that strength training will make you “too bulky.” But actually, strength training only results in “bulk” if you’re working a specific training program where that’s the goal. Most swimmers won’t be following a program like that, because the goal is to reduce race times, not increase muscle mass.
If you’re a swimmer, you know that there’s always pressure to improve your speed and stamina.
You are always wanting to drop those race times. And one way to do that? Increase your strength. Adding strength training to your swimming routine could be the perfect addition to your training schedule.
But it’s easy to be worried that adding strength training could unnecessarily add bulk, and you might worry that that will slow you down in the water. It’s understandable to be worried about that, but studies have shown that it’s only when you deliberately aim for bulking and follow a program designed for bulk that you’ll result in that kind of physical change.
In fact, adding strength training to your swimming routine could actually have the opposite effect of slowing you down in the water: it could decrease your risk of injury. The injuries that competitive swimmers experience are not insignificant, and if there’s a way to minimize that risk, it’s a good idea to check it out.
Feeling overwhelmed? Not sure what kind of strength training program will best support your time in the pool? That's ok.
A personal trainer, or a personal trainer app, can be a great way to add strength training into your routine in a supported way. You’ll have someone to ask questions, and you can articulate your specific swimming-related goals.
In fact, a personal trainer can help you design a tailored training program that will add - and not subtract - to your time in the pool.
And if you’re one of those many swimmers who has experienced a swimming-related injury or surgery, a personal trainer is a great way to support getting back in the water or rehabbing in whatever way you choose.
They can provide encouragement and motivation, customize your workout plan based on the changes your body goes through as you rehab, and stick with you every step of the way during what can be a super challenging process.
And even better? Some personal trainers actually work with clients remotely. That means if it’s easiest for you to do some dry-land strength training on the deck before or after you get in the water, you can have your personal trainer right there with you, no matter what.
Ready to get started? Great! Trainwell offers a free 14-day trial so you can see if this fitness experience provides everything you’re looking for. Explore trainwell’s 14-day free trial to find your next personal trainer: https://join.trainwell.net/
Written by Ella Browning.
