Hey guys! Welcome to this week's video from Propulsion Swimming.
I'm Scott, I'm going to take you through some basic dry land exercises that can help improve
your swimming. So these exercises are going to be great to progress swimmers
of all abilities, so let's roll that intro...
What intro Scott?
Number one.
Let's start with an exercise everyone knows about. Press ups.
A great exercise for building upper body strength especially in your chest and
pectoral muscles but also your triceps. Most think swimming is all about your
back and your lats however, chest is used in all strokes especially breaststroke.
Press ups are great for helping build your upper body strength with the added
benefit you could do them wherever you want. Depending on the set you want to do
you can help build upper body strength as well as muscle endurance.
To start with, your hands need to be shoulder width apart with your arms directly
below your shoulders. Straightening your legs stand, on your toes and ensure that
you keep your spine perfectly straight throughout.
Keep your elbows in as you lower towards the floor making sure your nose is a few inches above the surface.
Then drive up with all the power you have in your chest and your triceps
Keeping good posture is key to performing the perfect push up.
Exercise number two, squat jumps. A simple but effective exercise to help build explosive power
essential for turns and starts.
Squat jumps work on your lower body, mainly your quads and glutes.
So, how to perform them. First of all you need to make sure your feet are at least your
hips width apart. Then during the squat motion you need to ensure that your
heels are firmly fixed to the ground. You keep your knees over your feet and bend
your legs no further than 90 degrees. On the jump phase of the motion you need to
make sure you're driving up from your quads and your glutes. Make sure you
extend your calves and your ankles for maximum height.
You can also perform this exercise in a streamline position, just to replicate as you would in a pool.
Next up, dips. You can do these with an exercise bench as shown in our video or
you can just use a sofa or a chair from around the house.
Dips are great for working on your triceps strength, a key muscle when
propelling yourself through the water. The best example of this propulsion is
when you're extending your hand to your hips on a frontcrawl motion.
You're aiming to keep your hands a shoulder width apart, bend at your elbows to a 90
degrees and then for maximum benefit for your swimming, make sure you're
accelerating upwards extending your triceps as you do so.
A great exercise for improving your dives and your balance are lunges. They engage your
lower body mainly your glutes and of course as well as helping your
stabilization muscles.
To do this exercise you need to maintain a good posture. Keeping your chest high is essential for this.
When you're taking your stride forward you need to make
sure you're not going too far or too little. The aim is for your knee never to
go further than your feet or your toes.
You can change this exercise up by doing them as single leg lunges or by
alternating between each leg. I saved the best exercise till last,
burpees. If you're a fan of burpees you're really weird but this is a key
exercise for increasing your cardiovascular capacity as well as your
strength endurance.
Because burpees involves jumping off the ground, just like squat jumps,
it improves or starts and your turns. To start with you need to get yourself into
a press up position. From here, you tuck your knees into your chest
and return back to the press up position. You then have to jump off the ground.
Sounds easy, it's not. For a more swimming based
movement you can jump off the ground in a streamline position. If you're finding
it too easy after 10 burpees, why not add a press up into the mix.
One key thing to remember when doing all of these exercises is to breathe out when you're
doing the concentric motion. So basically when you push out breathe out.
You can perform all these exercises in isolation, why not give them a go as a circuit.
You could try all 5 exercises as 30 seconds per station five times through.
Why didn't give that a try at home. Thanks for watching this week's video
from Propulsion Swimming. Did you like this setup would you like to see more of
this style of video. Let us know in the comments below and we'll see if we can
make more content like this. From me Scott, thanks for watching. I'll see you soon.
Most think that swimming is all about you're back..
Wayyyy..
From us at Propulsion Swimming we hope you enjoyed this video. I'm Scott, be sure to SUBSCRIBE to more
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