Jim is a masters swimmer who recently reached out to me some advice on making a dryland program specifically for swimmers. He did not come to me dealing with an injury at the time, but wanted to do his best to lower his injury risk. Jim wanted to start increasing is yardage for the bay swim this upcoming summer and knew that strength training would help him out. Jim had done strength training before, but felt like was not making results. He would go around the gym and do a couple of sets on the machines. He admitted something had to change, but had no idea where to begin.
Jim had thoughts about trying CrossFit, since it has a lot of strength work, but Jim did not know if this was a good idea. After hearing all of this, it became clear Jim needed a structured dryland program. Not only this, but also education on what makes a dryland program effective.
The Difference Between between Crossfit and Dryland
There are many similarities in the type of exercises between CrossFit workouts and dryland workouts for swimmers. Both include great exercises like squats, lunges, deadlifts, push ups, pull ups, etc. However, CrossFit has more of a focus on olympic lifts, like cleans and snatches, and an overall higher volume of strength training.
For those who do not know what a typical CrossFit workout looks like, they are typically broken down into a couple of parts. You will start with a warm up and potentially some mobility work. Then depending on what the training schedule of the gym is, you will either focus on or do a combination of metabolic conditioning, gymnastics/bodyweight exercises, or powerlifting/weightlifting.
Higher volume strength training isn’t neccesarily bad for swimmers, but isn’t optimal for your training. Recent studies have shown that lower volume, higher intensity dryland training is just as effective as higher volume training for swimmers. On top of this, lower volume-higher intensity strength training will not leave you as fatigued for your swimming workouts. So not only will you get the same benefits of higher volume training, but also be able to still crush your swimming workouts at the same time.
Types Of Exercises Should You Do In a Dryland Program for Swimmers
The types of exercises swimmers should do can be broken down into 4 broad categories.
Upper Body Push
- Push ups
- Dumbbell press
- Shoulder press
- Bench press
Upper Body Pull
- Pull ups
- Rows
- Lat pull down
Squat
- Front squat
- goblet squat
- Lunge
- RFESS
Hinge
- Deadlift
- Hex bar deadlift
- SLDL
- Bridges
After you incoportate an exercise from each of these categories, swimmers should specifically look to add exercises that target core and shoulder stability to help prevent injury. Doing 10-15 minutes of core and shoulder stability work 2-3x a week in your dryland program will go a long way in preventing injuries.
Some of the my favorite shoulder “prehab” exercises for swimmers include…
- TRX Rows
- Banded Pull Aparts
- Push Up Plus
- Prone T’s/Y’s
- Face Pulls
For exercises you want to avoid with swimmers shoulder, check out a recent blog post- 3 Exercises You Want to Avoid with Swimmers Shoulder.
My favorite core stability exercises for swimmers include…
- Plank
- Side-plank
- Swiss ball pike ups
- Renegade rows
- Plank Shoulder Taps
- Bear Crawls
After doing a push, pull, upper body push, and upper body pull, pick 2-3 exercises that work on shoulder and core stability. This will give you a workout that is well rounded and focuses on 6-7 movements that are specific to swimmers.
If you want some of my favorite mobility assessments for swimmers, check out a recent blog post- How to Assess Mobility in Swimmers.
Set’s and Reps Swimmers Should Do
The easier answer is it depends. For younger swimmers, sticking to higher reps, lower weight may be the most beneficial. By doing this, younger swimmers can focus on maintaining quality form and give them more practice to master the movements patterns. Specifically, doing 3-5 sets of 8-15 reps may be best for the younger swimmer.
For swimmers who are more experienced with dryland training, doing lower reps, higher weight training may become a better option. Low rep, high weight training targets improving strength, where high rep, low weight training targets more muscular endurance/muscle growth more. For swimmers experienced in the weight room, doing 3-5 sets of 3-8 reps would be best.
If you do not have access to weights, you can slow each rep down and do more advanced exercise progressions to maintain the intensity needed for strength gains. For example, if you want to do squats, but bodyweight ones are too easy and you do not have access to weights, you can do skater squats or split squats with a 5 second lower each rep.
For masters swimmers, you want to have a combination of dryland training that focuses on muscle growth and muscle strength. Once you are over the age of 35, you start to loose roughly 1% of your muscle mass each year. This makes doing 1-2 cycles of weight training that focus on muscle growth super important for not just swimming, but for longevity too. A decrease in muscle mass can lead to decreased strength and power, making not only swimming harder, but other activities of daily living harder too. For muscle growth (or hypertrophy), doing 3-5 sets of 6-12 reps will be best.
How Many Times A Week?
Again, the simple answer is it depends. For most swimmers, doing dryland 2x a week is the minimum needed to see improvements in strength or muscle growth. Optimally, you want do 3 strength workouts a week, done every other day, but two is the minimum needed to see improvements.
Best Dryland Equipment
If you do not have access to weights, some of my favorite dryland equipment for swimmers are….
TRX Suspension Trainer
Medicine Balls
Kettlebells
Crossover Symmetry Bands
The Wrap Up:
Making a great dryland program shouldn’t be hard. Many of the workouts you will find on google are way too complicated. Instead, the best thing a swimmer can do in their dryland program is to keep it simple. Pick a handful of exercises, do them well, and keep making them progressively harder over time.
Thanks for reading!
Alex Ewart