Back in high school, a friend of mine, Taylor, was getting frustrated about our dryland training. She knew she was getting faster in the pool, as the times she could hold on test sets were better. Taylor could also finally make the fastest intervals during aerobic sets! However, she had no idea whether she was getting better at dryland training. Taylor felt like she was loosing motivation to even do the dryland training because didn’t know if it was making a difference. It makes sense why Taylor was frustrated! She felt like she needed some kind of dryland performance tests, specifically for swimmers, but didn’t know what to do. She tried looking on the internet, but was not able to find anything swimming specific.
Why Is Performance Testing Important for Swimmers?
Just like you do test sets in the pool to track your progress, you want to do dryland performance tests to track progress as well. But what exactly are you trying to track with performance tests? Some of the major items you want to measure are…
- Strength
- Power
- Stability
- Function
- Mobility
- Muscle Endurance
- Response to dryland/strength training program
Tracking your response to a dryland program is under-appreciated. Why? Because just like in the pool, certain types of training may be more beneficial for you. On the flip side, some types of training may not be as effective. Also for certain times of the year, you may want some metrics to improve more (like power during championship season). This all applies for your dryland/strength training too.
Keeping track of how you respond to certain dryland training or exercises by using performance tests for swimmers can help make the most effective program for you. For example, Taylor may have larger strength gains with higher volumes of strength training. While her teammate Jake, may get better results with a low volume strength training plan.
What Performance Test Should Swimmers Do?
This blog post is going to cover tests that are useful for measuring strength, power, and stability. There are numerous research articles that go over the benefits of improving strength, power, and stability in swimmers. The large majority of studies show significant improvements in starts, turns, and swimming speed in a relatively short time period in swimmers who do dryland training.
For a blog post that takes a deep dive into three mobility tests for swimmers, take a look at How To Assess Shoulder Mobility in Swimmers.
Now for the performance tests that swimmers should do!
Test #1 Closed Kinetic Chain Upper Extremity Stability Test
The closed kinetic chain upper extremity stability test (CKCUST)has been used for years in the physical therapy world. The main objective of this test is assess your upper bodies stability and coordination.
How do you complete this test?
- Mark two lines three feet apart.
- Get into the push up position with one hand on each piece of tape.
- Once the test starts, use one hand to reach across your body and touch the piece of tape under the opposite hand
- After your hand touches that piece of tape, return to the starting position
- Complete the movement with the other hand
- Repeat as fast as possible for 15 seconds.
While it may seem simple at first, the CKCUST test can get pretty tiring, pretty fast.
What makes this test important? Since having shoulder stability is absolutely critical for swimmers, having a way to measure shoulder stability really helpful in assessing injury risk. The CKCUST has been shown to have moderate evidence to predict shoulder injuries. This test is a great option for swimmers as it assesses shoulder stability in a position where you hand temporarily fixed to the ground. This in analogus to the pull phase of the swimming strokes, where your body is moving around your hand, making this test swimming specific.
For the CKCUST, it helps some have normative data before beginning to give you an idea of what a “good” score is. Anywhere between 20-25 taps in 15 seconds is considered normal. For those with a shoulder injury or history of shoulder injuries, the amount of taps may be lower.
Test #2 Unilateral Shot Put
The unilateral shot put test is the go to test for assess shoulder power. Just like the CKCUST, this test requires little equipment, making it practical for swimmers to complete. Evidence has shown that the unilateral shot put test is correlated with strength in the muscles around the shoulder and the triceps. Considering how important those muscles are to swimming performance, tracking strength and power increase can yield great performance benefits.
The test is completed as follows
- Sit up against a wall, knees bent at 90 degrees, and feet flat on the floor.
- Hold the medicine ball (preferably 6-8 pound ball) at shoulder height and push the pall(not throw it!) as far forward as you can.
- While pushing the ball, keep your head and back on the wall, and your non throwing hand in your lap
- 2 Practice trials
- Then complete 3 maximal pushes
- Measure from the wall to where the ball first contacted the floor, then average the three scores.
Tracking the distance you are to push the ball over time can help assess strength and power in tricep and shoulder muscles.
Test #3 Pull Up Test
Considering the lats are the powerhouse muscle of swimming, it is important to measure their strength and/or endurance regularly. Increasing lat strength can lead to a more powerful and efficient catch and pull when swimming, improving your swimming performance. There are two different ways to test pull ups.
First, you can assess a 1 or 3 rep max pull ups. For this, you would use a weight belt to hold additional weight and see how much extra weight you can hold for 1 or 3 reps. This would measure the strength of the lats.
The second test you could do is a max repetition of pull ups. Instead of testing strength, this would test muscular endurance for swimmers who can do more than 6 reps. It is important to note that how much weight you can do on a 1 rep max pull up, does not correlate to how many pull ups you can do in a row.
What is interesting about the max pull test versus a 1-3 rep max test is that the results do not correlate with each other. For example, someone who can do 3 pulls up with 60 pounds, may not be able to do as many pull ups in a row compared to someone who can only do 3 pull ups with 20 pounds. Considering this, you want to stick with the same test throughout the season to capture any improvements.
The Wrap Up:
Once Taylor found out about these three tests, she felt more motivation to do her dryland program. It turns out her pull ups were much weaker than the other two tests. As a result, Taylor talked to her coach to tweak her program to add more pull up training. Taylor went on to have an amazing rest of the season, which she attributed to her increased pull up strength!
When it comes to dryland training for swimmers, it is important to test, not guess. Tracking how you respond to your dryland training can help create a plan that is optimized for you. Three of the best tests for swimmers to complete are the closed kinetic chain upper extremity stability test, the unilateral shot put test, and either a 1/3 rep max pull test or max repetition pull test. Try completing this performance tests for swimmers and see what you think!