For the past few months, SwimSwam has been posting a daily swimming workout to help inspire swim coaches around the world who are looking for new ideas to try with their swimmers. Since most of the world’s pools are currently closed for business, we wanted to give swimmers and coaches an alternative set of dryland workouts to use to stay fit during the quarantine. These workouts will be designed to be done around the house. Some will use basic equipment, like medicine balls or stretch cords, while others will be all body-weight exercises.
These workouts are provided for informational purposes only.
See more at-home training ideas on our At Home Swim Training page here
Upper Body
Today’s workout will be upper-body focused, after a few days of core and lower body workouts. Just like in the pool, it’s good to vary your routines to avoid overtaxing certain joints and giving them intermittent time to recover, even when it’s not a full recovery day.
Warmup
Start with a simple warmup: 40 movements in each direction of each joint on your body. Start with your neck and work your way down. These should be simple, controlled motions – don’t throw your head around wildly, just loosening it up.
Set 1
Most of these exercises are described in this article, with GIF demonstrations.
*If the standard pushups are becoming too easy, sub for a progression variation, like a decline pushup or a box pushup.
3x through:
- 20 plank taps (10 with each arm) – stay in control!
- 10 plank up-downs
- 10 pushups*
- 20 recovery arm-circles (10 forward, 10 backward)
- :30 rest
Set 2
These exercises will focus more on triceps, which are crucial muscles for swimming. While the triceps make up two-thirds of the bulk of the upper arm muscle, they’re often neglected in dryland workouts.
3 x through:
- 10 x triceps box dip
- 10 x diamond pushups
- 10 x plank jacks
- 20 recovery arm-circles (10 forward, 10 backward)
- :30 rest
Set 3/Cooldown
This video, produced by Swim England, shows a series of exercises that can help improve swimmers’ posture. The swimmers’ posture involves rolled shoulders, flat back, and other telltale signs that can both hurt performance and cause injury.
This is a great workout to have in your back pocket and do a few times a week after your dryland workout.
