Hey guys and welcome back to another video from Propulsion Swimming. I'm Scott,
and this week I'm gonna take you through some press up variations you can do to
help improve your swimming. Press ups are an exercise that everyone knows and they
should be utilized by swimmers as there's many benefits to be had, such as
increasing your strength and core stability. Press ups are mostly known for
targeting your pectoral muscles, however in this video the variations we're going
to give you are can be aimed at targeting other muscles as well as your
chest. As usual we'll save the hardest one till last, so make sure you keep watching till the end.
Variation number one is one I'm sure you've all tried at
home, maybe without even realizing, a wide press up. It's extremely similar to a
standard or conventional press up, the only difference being your hand
placement is slightly wider. The standard way to perform a press up is to have
your hands directly under your shoulders. On this exercise your hands are
positioned outside of your shoulder line. The aim is to lower your body towards
the floor and just as your nose is about to touch the floor accelerate yourself
back up. This variation predominantly works your
chest but also your shoulders and upper arms. All of which is vital when it comes
to swimming. This was the easiest variation I'm going to give you, from
here on in it gets much tougher.
The next variation is opposite to the previous one in terms of hand positions
and it's called the triangle or diamond press up. That's because your hands are
going to be underneath your chest in a triangle or diamond position with your
fingers and thumbs touching. This exercise, like the previous one,
targets your pecs however this time much more tricep activation is required. When
performing this variation, the aim is to keep your elbows as tucked in as
possible and always keep your core engaged. As your hands are closer
together they form a small base of support.
This means your balance is also going to be tested making your core work a lot
harder and especially your obliques. And your obliques are really important when
it comes to swimming because they use a lot in freestyle and backstroke.
Now the third variation if you haven't performed it before is gonna feel
slightly strange. It's the spiderman press up. The spiderman press up works
the same muscles as the previous ones however, it now adds co-ordination and hip
mobility into the mix. To do it, perform the same movement as a regular press up
but as you lower yourself to the floor, bring one leg towards your hand keeping
your foot off the floor. As you push yourself back return your leg to the
starting position. You then alternate each leg with every press up you do.
Keeping your foot off the floor when your mid press up activates your hip
flexors, engages hip mobility and requires a great deal of co-ordination.
All of which are much needed when you're swimming.
The next variation is a decline press up. This is an advanced press up that needs
your feet to be higher than the rest of your body. Your feet can be on a chair a
wall or anything that raises them off the ground. As you can see in our video we
used a tree trunk. The difference between this variation of press up and a standard
one is that this targets your upper chest muscles and your shoulders a
lot more than you normally would. Additionally this requires strong core
stability, including your abs and back, to be able to maintain a strong body
position throughout. These are all key muscles needed for a strong arm pull in
swimming so we suggest doing this exercise regularly to increase overall
upper body strength. Of course as I mentioned before I've saved the hardest
variation to last and you guessed it it's a clap press up.
This is an explosive exercise and can help activate fast twitch muscle fibers
in your chest, shoulders and triceps. Sprint swimmers will benefit the most
from this exercise but that doesn't mean other distance swimmers should disregard it.
Having good, fast twitch muscle fibers
help build strength, power and muscle mass. This variation can be quite harsh
on your wrists because of the heavy landing between each rep. Please take
care when doing it. If necessary you can wear wrist supports to help protect your wrists even better.
If you're feeling brave and you want to make this harder you can.
Why not try bringing your feet off the ground as well as your hands. You
have to be extremely powerful in order to do this one so well done if you can
at home. With all of the press up exercises keep your body in a solid,
straight line throughout the whole exercise to help avoid any back injuries
that might occur. The aim is to try and do 20 to 30 reps on each exercise before
taking a minutes rest. However if you can do more than 20 to 30 reps, great! Go
ahead there's going to be no harm in doing that, it's only gonna build your
upper body strength quicker. Thanks for watching this video from Propulsion
Swimming. I've been Scott. Please share this video with others, comment below if
you have any problems and of course SUBSCRIBE to the Propulsion Swimming
channel for more weekly swimming based tutorials. For now good luck with all
those exercises at home and I will see you on the next one!