What's Wrong With Land Training
Swimming is a funny sport, most sports have a lot in common whether it be Tennis, Basketball, Football etc. But swimming, few other sports are you horizontal for most of the action with the shoulders being the main propulsive joints in a near weightless environment. In swimming there is also no change of direction and no real stretch shortening cycle as is common in a lot of other sports. So, if swimming isn’t really like any other sport, why do people try and train swimmers the same as most other athletes?
Land Training Content
The land training content for swimmer depends on the ability of the athletes, youth athlete needs motor skill development, jumping, landing, proprioception etc. Adolescent swimmers may need more depending on their training age and movement skill, and I’d like to see senior athletes lifting fairly heavy and developing their power output ability leading to increasing power endurance.
Swimmers can only exert so much force against water and the only time they have contact with a static platform is the starts and turns. So, increasing the force production capacity of swimmers is useful, up to a point and past that point you’re just wasting time and putting the athletes at risk. What is that point? It is different for every athlete and depends on the athlete’s ability to apply the work in the gym into the water. Less talented athletes will need more force production capacity than a more talented athlete.
Exercise Selection
Exercise selection also plays a critical role in the athletic development of swimmers, a lot of programmes hit the Back Squat, Front Squat, Overhead Press, Cleans etc, and it’s awful! What’s the point in putting a heavy bar on a swimmer and asking them to squat down and back up? It doesn’t replicate any phase of swimming, even Breaststroke. I rarely see a knee angle less than 90° during swimming including starts and turns. Swimming also doesn’t feature any countermovement phase (quick descent immediately followed by a quick ascent), even on turns, so why make them do it under a heavy bar? Same goes for Front Squats. Overhead pressing, a brutal movement on the shoulder. Holding a bar doesn’t allow for free movement of the shoulder and risks placing the shoulder in an impingement position (flexion and internal rotation) if coached poorly. Cleans are a no as half is a front squat, and a clean pull is only a go if the swimmers can produce high power outputs and barbell velocities.
Take Home Key Points
A better approach is to practice force production in positions similar to those during racing and training. Trapbar deadlifts, perfect. Squat Jumps, perfect. Movements that don’t have a countermovement and train specific joint angles relevant to swimming. To give the athletes the movements that swimming doesn’t allow (countermovement, plyometrics, squatting etc), put those in the warm up to help keep them injury free, healthy, mobile and to challenge motor learning and coordination.