Equipment Needed Variations Muscle Groups Guidelines Basic Workout Resources

Equipment:

Optional equipment includes swim fins, kickboards, hand paddles, and leg floats. Swim fins provide your lower body (muscles of the hips and knees) with a good workout and improve the flexibility of your ankles. Swim fins also enable you to swim faster. The remaining equipment (kickboard, hand paddles, and leg floats) should be used only by those whose swim technique is sound (see the General Technique Tips below).

Variations:

• Freestyle or Crawl: The fastest, most efficient, and most popular stroke.
• Breaststroke: Good choice for variety and injured shoulders.
• Butterfly: The most difficult to master, but impressive to watch when done well.
• Backstroke: Keeps the face out of the water and can be quite leisurely.
• Sidestroke: The safety stroke all lifeguards must master but also offers recreational swimmers more variety in underwater movement.

All other mammals have an instinctive ability to swim. Regardless of your stroke choice, it is important to understand that technique is critically important - the wrong technique will likely cause injury and hinder efficient progress through the water. You will improve your swimming performance most readily by eliminating resistance. Stroking furiously in the water does not necessarily propel you faster, it only exhausts you faster!

General Technique Tips: Even if you are a recreational swimmer, you will benefit from this advice. Swim speed, or velocity, is the product of Stroke Length (SL) and Stroke Frequency (SF). Increasing the SL (distance traveled per stroke) requires that you first learn to reduce resistance to forward progress. After perfecting a position of low resistance, you can then add power to your stroke. This power originates in the hips and is translated up through the torso to the shoulder. SF is not as important as SL. World class swimmers are not fast and efficient because they take frequent strokes. They are fast and efficient because they travel further in the water with each stroke. The following tips should help you maximize SL, improve efficiency, and minimize risk of injury.

1. Buoyancy varies from person to person (some are natural sinkers), so make the best of what you have. You will find that your swim speed improves as you take advantage of your buoyancy (no matter how small). You will find your center of buoyancy in the region of your sternum. By balancing yourself on your center of buoyancy (especially in the crawl, breast, and back strokes) you will move more easily in the water. Here’s a secret of world class swimmers: Balance yourself by consciously pushing or pressing your upper chest into the water. This maneuver brings your hips closer to the surface and reduces your frontal resistance.
2. Rowing sculls are long and narrow. This shape reduces water resistance to forward progress. What can you do? Maintain a long, streamlined body. Between strokes pause slightly (with one hand extended in front of you) - this introduces a longer glide and streamlines your body (making it long and narrow) as it is propelled.
3. When swimming backstroke and freestyle, rotate the body side-to-side from the hips. It might seem like you are swimming on your side, but this is exactly what you want. This rotation begins at the hips and is transferred up the torso to the shoulder and arm. Just before you begin the arm pull, you should begin to rotate in the opposite direction. Use this rotational force (biomechanists call this torque) to help pull you through the water. A similar series of movements is used by major league baseball pitchers to throw 90+ MPH fastballs!
4. Do not force your hands through the water! As your technique improves you should feel like you are climbing a "water ladder" with your hands and forearms resting against solid rungs of water. This is what collegiate coaches call a "feel for the water."
5. The use of equipment such as kickboards, certain hand paddles, and leg floats should be reserved for those swimmers with firmly established technique! Use of these pool "toys" generally alters the body’s center of buoyancy and may harm your technique. Swim fins are acceptable swim aids.

Muscle Groups:

Guidelines:

• Risks: If you or your children do not know how to swim, LEARN NOW!!! Lessons for both adults and children are usually available at your local YMCA, high school, or college. Injuries from swimming usually occur in the shoulder. Such injuries are the result of improper technique, overuse, and/or weakness or muscle strength imbalance in the shoulder region.
• Safety: Never swim alone! Make sure you are familiar with the water in which you swim. Open water swimming in the ocean or in lakes and ponds can be especially dangerous. Ocean currents can carry you several hundred yards offshore. Lakes and ponds may have submerged hazards.
• Concerns: Without the proper training, attempting to rescue someone can cost you your life (no matter how well you swim or your conditioning). The American Red Cross offers water safety courses (see Resources below).

Resources:

United States Swimming

Workout:

Important!!!

The heart rate response to swimming is more moderate than the response seen in dry land exercise. Consequently, the Karvonen determination of target heart rate should be adjusted downward 10 to 15 beats per minute for each zone.

• Warm-up: 250 to 400 meters easy crawl, breast, and back strokes. Do not over-exert yourself!
• 4x50 balance drill: Scissors kick with arms extended in front of you (without a kickboard). Your head should be in the water and turned to the side to breathe. Consciously press your upper chest into the water to bring your hips up. You may use swim fins if your forward progress is slow. Pause every 25 or 50 meters to catch your breath. This is not a race, but a drill to improve your balance in the water.
• 2x50 side balance drill: Scissors kick on your right side with your right arm extended. Your head should be leaning on your right shoulder with your mouth just above the surface. Remember to balance properly by pressing your armpit into the water. Do 2x50 on your left side. Again, pause every 25 or 50 meters to catch your breath.
• 4x50 single arm pulls: This time you will concentrate on rolling the trunk during the pull phase of the stroke. Begin as you did with the initial balance drill; face down, scissors kick, pressing the chest. This time you will keep your left hand extended while you pull your right hand through the stroke and turning your body to its left side (you should be facing the right wall of the pool). Do not pull your arm quickly through the water. Pull it deliberately and allow it to search out a rung on the ladder (still water). Pause briefly on your side, your right hand resting on your right hip. Recover the right arm close to the body, returning it to meet the extended left hand. Perform 4x50 for the left arm.
• 4x50 double arm pulls: This drill brings together the elements in the three previous drills. It is performed similarly to the single arm pull. This time, however, you will alternate pulling right and left arms (remembering to roll the body each time). Remember to balance on your center of buoyancy.
• Do not neglect the proper technique during the remainder of your workout. You may finish your workout with any combination of distance or interval workouts. Here is an example:
• 2x100 breast stroke
• 2x100 back stroke
• 10x50 freestyle: Rest 30-60 seconds. Count the number of strokes with each 50 meter interval and try not to exceed 22 strokes. Remember, good swimmers swim fast because of a long stroke length! Your goal should be to reduce the number of strokes you take in 50 meters.
• Cool-down: 150-250 meters easy stroke(s) of your choice.

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The Exercise and Physical Fitness Web Page is an ongoing project by graduate students in the Master of Science program in Exercise Science in the Department of Kinesiology and Health at Georgia State University. This project was created by J. Andrew Doyle, PhD, and was last modified on: March 25, 1999.