If you are a serious competitive swimmer, you already have some understanding as to why dryland workouts for swimmers are so important. These dryland exercises strengthen your core muscle groups, which provide you with more power, balance and stability.
While dryland workouts for swimmers are essential, often athletes are unsure about what exercises are best, how often to complete exercises and how to alter the training to increase intensity or compensate for an injury. Here are a few tips to help you create a successful dryland program.
Obviously to be successful at swimming you have practice for hundreds and hundreds of hours in the pool, crafting each stroke. It might seem difficult to find time between swim practice and other commitments to fit in dryland workouts for swimmers, but they don’t have to take up a huge chunk of time. Consider beginning with two dryland workouts per week and eventually adding a third training session. Each session might last around 45 minutes to an hour.
When it comes to dryland workouts for swimmers, it’s not as much about quantity as it is about quality. One of the biggest mistakes people make is setting up a perfectly adequate mix of exercises but not completing each exercise carefully. For instance, 20 well-executed crunches are far more valuable than 100 sit-ups that you just breeze through. Another big mistake people make is failing to warm-up prior to a dryland workout. This leads to potential injury and one of the main goals of dryland is to strengthen the body and prevent injuries during swim practice and competition.
Balance is an important part of any exercise program and this is certainly true when it comes to dryland workouts for swimmers. Too often people focus on crunches and squats, and while these are valuable, there are also many variations of crunches and squats to consider as well as many types of push-ups. There are also specific exercises to strengthen your shoulders and arms. A good dryland program contains all of the elements you need to strengthen your whole body.
It can help to use the services of a professional strength training and conditioning coach that specializes in swimming. After all, most people really don’t know how to exercise properly. We have a good general idea, but a strength coach can really help you ensure that you are doing the best exercises and doing each one correctly. A strength coach also will be able to make adjustments to your dryland workouts to help you grow as a swimmer.