Research investigating foam rollers, roller massagers, and other similar devices have generally reported increased range of motion (ROM), diminished perceived pain, accelerated recovery from exercise-induced muscle damage and augmented performance. This makes foam rolling for swimmers a pertinent topic for all swimmers and coaches. The mechanisms underpinning these significant ROM increases with rolling may be quite diverse. Muscle, fascia, and …
Injury Screening for Swimmers
Injury screens were recently popularized with the functional movement screen (FMS). In fact, we created a comprehensive guide for injury screening for swimmers in our Dryland for Swimmers book. We created this as we felt the land-based tests weren’t predictable of swimming due to the novelties of the motions in the pool. One of the most effective methods to reduce …
Strength Training Improves Swimming Starts, for some
Strength training and swimming have always been a debated topic. In fact, some argue that strength training and/or plyometrics are not beneficial for swimming performance. I personally performed a comprehensive strength training for swimming review and produced Dryland for Swimmers. However, new research is evolving and new research on how strength training improves swimming starts was recently published. Strength Training …
Elite Swimmers Are Superior at the Swim Turn to Subelite Swimmers
The swim turn is usually divided into 5 distinct stages that include (a) inward-turn, (b) rotation, (c) push-off, (d) underwater, and (d) outward-turn. Past research suggests swimmers with higher peak forces have faster turn time, reduced wall contact time, and greater mean impulse than slower swimmers (Blanksby 1996; Chow 1984; Takahashi 1982). However, more modern research is needed to analyze …
Troubleshooting Series: Cervical Spine Injuries in Swimmers
Troubleshooting Series: Cervical Spine Understanding cause-and-effect lies in the heart of effective movement correction, both in and out of the water. The better grasp we have of the body’s movement fundamentals, the more capable we can decipher the visual presentation of stroke flaws. The quotations around “flaws” are intentional, as the flaw that catches our attention on deck may be …
Internal Program Review: Strength Training for an Elite Freshman Swimmer
If you randomly sample 20 swim coaches and ask them what should be the purpose of dryland training, you’ll likely get 20 answers. If you were to ask me that same question at 20 different points throughout the year, you’d also get 20 answers. Given this, my ability to answer hypotheticals surrounding dryland training for swimmers is a bit limited. …
Eight-Week Battle Rope Training Basketball Shooting Accuracy, Will it Improve Swimming Stroke Biomechanics?
Previous studies have shown that shooting accuracy is a crucial factor distinguishing between winning and losing basketball teams. Battle rope (BR) interval training is a low-impact, total-body, and intense metabolic modality. Methods Thirty male well-trained Division-I basketball players (age range: 18–25 years; basketball training: 6.7 ± 3.8 years) who had not sustained neuromuscular injury in the prior 6 months participated …
Effect of Squat Depth and Load on Muscular Effort
The squat is a popular dry-land exercise for swimming. This is likely due to the numerous muscles involved and the common belief this motion mimics a flip turn (despite contradictory research). However, the effect the depth and load on the squat are unknown. Muscle force is hard to measure, therefore motion analysis techniques combined with the equations to solve for …
Resistance Exercise Load Does Not Determine Muscle Size
It is commonly thought the more weight one lifts during resistance training, the greater increase in muscle size (hypertrophy) occurs. Unfortunately, there is minimal evidence suggesting these two conditions correlate. Moreover, the size of a muscle is not suggested to correlate with swimming success. Instead of a percent of maximum, the total volume of weight lifted is potentially a means …
Do I Have Core Swimming Strength?
TAKE HOME POINTS FOR CORE STRENGTH IN SWIMMERS Core strength is plane dependent. Core strength is activity dependent. Core strength can vary with training volume, load, etc. I’ve received a lot of emails recently regarding core strength, specifically how to test for core strength and tell if someone has enough “core strength for swimming”. Now, there are numerous methods for testing …