SwimBox and Vasa Trainer Project: Katie's Third Lesson

In case it's not clear at this point, these ladies are really dedicated to improving their swimming! We've been seeing them as close to once a week as all of our schedules will allow, and both Katie and Flaca are making huge improvements to their stroke technique with our swim lessons and work on the Vasa Trainer SwimErg. If you haven't already make sure to check out the breakdown of Flaca's lesson from last week here to read about her work on elbow position and timing of her catch.

The main focus of Katie's lesson this week was on her finish and recovery. With so much emphasis on having and maintaining a proper catch position, the finish of your stroke into your recovery is often an overlooked aspect of freestyle. In order to fully benefit from the propulsion you get from your catch and pull, you need to keep your palm facing backwards and make a "J" shaped movement from the finish of your stroke into your recovery. For clarification, the recovery is the portion of your stroke from when your hand exits the water after you finish your pull to when you place your hand back in the water to start your next catch. Essentially, the entire time your arm is out of the water is your recovery.

To practice and gain better understanding of the "J" shape we're looking for, Dan had Katie work on just the finish of her stroke without actually making any full stroke movements. Lying face down in the water with her hands at her sides, Katie made an egg beater motion with each arm, only pushing backwards and slightly out using her forearm and hand. Dan has his hand in the water to give Katie something to aim for in order to give her direction as to where we want her to finish her stroke.

It's commonly thought that you want to pull back and finish your stroke in a straight line. And in a perfect world, that would make sense. BUT, because your hips are rotating during the entirety of your stroke, it pulls your arm and hand inward towards your body. This movement prevents you from pulling back in a straight line, and will even result in recoveries starting behind you or stacked directly on top of your torso. We use the "J" shape movement to keep your paddle in a straight line and to keep your palm facing back - not up towards the surface - in order to connect the fluid motion into your recovery. The finish of your stroke, the "J" shape, is the beginning of your recovery.

SwimBox and Vasa Trainer Project: Lesson 2 w/ Flaca Guerrero

Time for week 3! In case you're just joining us, make sure you go back and read about our first and second lessons in our SwimBox and Vasa Trainer project we're currently working on with Katie Gage and Flaca Guerrero. Unfortunately Katie's daughter was sick this week and she was unable to come in, so we worked solely with Flacca on catch position and the timing of the movements of her catch, pull, and rotation.

At this point in our project I'm sure you've noticed a lot of repetition, and you're right. Our lessons are full of do this, do it again, again, make a correction, do it again, again, and so on. Repetition of small movements helps reinforce the movement as well as gives you more body awareness of how you want to feel in the water. We also drive concepts into the ground to make sure you're keeping proper positioning even when you're tired and frustrated. It can be a hard process, but one that definitely pays off. 

One of the biggest things Dan noticed we need to correct with Flaca's stroke is that her wrist was always beating her elbow to the finish of her stroke. When that happens she's losing the power of her catch entirely and her arm becomes drag in the water. To work on this Flaca practiced hinge drill, which is where you float on your stomach with your arms in a superman position, and the only movement you make is in your forearm by beginning your catch. This drill is great to show the amount of power you develop from your catch as well as the position you're looking for when your hand first enters the water to start the catch.

After working in the pool for a bit we moved over to the Vasa Trainer SwimErg (for the first time with Flaca!) to have an in depth look at her catch and pull. Being able to work with clients and actually move them into the proper position is one of our favorite things about the SwimErg. There's nothing else out there that lets us do this while at the same time being able to mimic the resistance of the water. This week Dan worked with her on using her elbow to bring her arm forward and keeping her elbow from dropping.

When your hand enters the water you want to make sure your elbow is the driving force that has moved your arm forward to get to that position. By keeping your elbow up and not letting it drop (which is the natural movement your body wants to make) your hand will be setup to enter the water in proper catch position. This will prevent you from having your hand enter the water, and THEN move it into proper catch position. Swimming is a sport of centimeters, and every tenth of a second counts, so setting this up properly adds up to quite a bit of time that you would have wasted otherwise. 

A very important thing to be mindful of when focusing on not letting your elbow drop is that you don't start to make these movements with your shoulder joint. As you move from your catch into your pull and the finish of your stroke make sure your shoulder blade is sliding downward towards your heels. This will ensure you're utilizing your back muscles instead of your shoulder joint, which prevents injury as well as gives you a greater power in the water.

SwimBox and Vasa Trainer Project: Lesson 2 w/Katie Gage and Lesson 1 w/Flaca Guerrero

Week 2 is in the books and we've already made a ton of progress! Katie Gage came in for her second lesson and focused on rotation, and we had Flaca Guerrero jump in the pool for the first time and begin her work on her head/body position. Flaca wasn't able to get on the Vasa Trainer just yet, as we need to fix a few foundational things first, but we'll get there soon.

What would you say if I told you Katie didn't rotate before her lesson this week. Crazy, right? It's actually a lot more common than you'd think, because rotation can get a bad reputation. The key is to not over-rotate. For a swimmer who uses a relaxed recovery, the sweet spot is to have a 45 degree rotation. This amount of rotation allows the mobility to take a proper full stroke (catch, pull, finish, recovery), as well as a proper breath. Swimmers that use a straight arm recovery can get away with less rotation, but probably no less than 35 degrees. And as you become a better/stronger swimmer you can comfortably alternate between both types of swimming depending on the situation.

In Katie's case her lack of rotation was causing an improper catch position. Because of this improper position she was not able to develop and maintain a paddle with her hand/forearm to propel her through the water. To have a proper catch, and in turn create a strong paddle, you want to start your rotation as soon as you start your catch. 

Back to the SwimErg! After focusing on rotation and the proper timing we hopped out of the pool to do some catch position exercises. One of our favorite things about the Vasa Trainer SwimErg is that we can focus on small movements without making you do the entire stroke. This makes it easier for your brain to understand the change you're trying to make and allows you to make changes faster than you would be able to otherwise. It's the same concept we use when we work on something in the pool and have our clients use a snorkel, because it takes the breath out of the equation and allows you to focus on the task at hand that much better.

For Flaca's first lesson we had her get in the pool and see her stroke for the first time. This allows us to see the pros and cons of her stroke and figure out what we need to start working on first. With Flaca, the first things our instructor Dan noticed were her head position, body position, and sinking legs.

By making a small change in Flaca's head position it started to fix her sinking torso and legs, as well as keep her much more streamlined as she moves through the water. Before we put her on the SwimErg it's important to make some foundational changes to her stroke and practice those in the water. Trying to change too many things at once will overload your brain and most likely will result in no change at all. It's very important to us to focus on injury prevention above all else, and making these changes before moving forward will help keep Flaca swimming safely for the rest of her life.

By having Flaca look downward towards the bottom of the pool, as opposed to slightly forward and looking ahead of herself, she's already made huge changes to her body position and sinking legs. Take a look at the picture above! The before shot is on the right and the after shot is on the left. Because this is such an important part of a strong, injury free, and efficient freestyle Dan had Flaca work on this for her entire lesson. Can't wait to put her on the SwimErg next week!

SwimBox and Vasa Trainer Project: Lesson 1 with Katie Gage

Yesterday marked the first day in our SwimBox and Vasa Trainer lesson plan for athlete Katie Gage!  Over the next few months we'll be working with both Katie and her friend/swim training partner Flaca Guerrero on their swim technique. During this project we'll be combining swim lessons, swim technique training, and Vasa Trainer SwimErg workouts to help improve their technique, strength, and overall performance in the water.

Katie started her first lesson off by jumping in the pool so we could see her swim. One of the keys to the swim lessons at SwimBox is checking our swimmers' starting point. Once we have that our instructor pinpoints the pros and cons of the swimmer's stroke, explains these to the swimmer, and then develops a lesson plan of where to begin and how we'll progress forward. So after our instructor Dan McGuire watched Katie swim he decided her catch was what needed to be worked on first. What did that mean? To the Vasa!

If you're not familiar with the Vasa Trainer the one we work with is their SwimErg. The SwimErg is a machine that allows you to focus on your technique while at the same time strengthening your endurance and power. Like a rowing erg, the SwimErg has an adjustable airflow system that simulates the resistance you feel while swimming in the water. It's really a great tool to help us break down swimming technique and focus on one aspect at a time. It's also a rare opportunity to be hands on in swimming, which can be extremely helpful when a swimmer is having trouble figuring out a new movement they need to make with their body.

With Katie on the SwimErg we spent the rest of her lesson explaining the movements behind a proper, and safe, catch position. When I refer to catch position here I'm talking about hand position as it enters the water, arm/elbow position as she catches and pulls through the water, and shoulder position/movement while pulling through the water to the finish of the stroke.

Quick tip? You want your shoulder blade to glide down your back towards your back pocket (imagine that you're wearing jeans while swimming, but don't actually try this...it's not fun). Keeping this movement allows your body to engage the proper muscles for your catch and pull, as well as prevents you from utilizing your shoulder joint to muscle through the water. Not only is the VASA a great tool to help us gain/work on proper swimming technique, but it gives us the perfect avenue to show you how to make the movements to stay injury free.

Now that Katie has a better grasp of the proper movements she needs to be making in her freestyle catch and pull, we gave her some workouts to do on the Vasa Trainer SwimErg she has at home. Stay tuned next week to read about Flaca's first lesson!

Pull Ups and Push Ups for Days

When you wake up every week day at 3:45am and head into swim practice, what's the best thing that can happen? DRYLAND. Dryland was the best surprise I ever got when I used to walk in the door to my morning swim practice in my high school days. Why? Because it meant I didn't have to plunge into the depts of the frigid, ice-like water that was the pool at George Mason University (don't try to tell me I'm a wimp; that's the coldest water at any pool I've ever swam at). They used to (not sure if they still do) keep their water at 78-79 degrees, which is basically the equivalent to dry ice in the swimming world. 

So when dryland days rolled around and I got to wake up at o'dark thirty but NOT jump directly into the icy waters akine to that of Antarctica I was one happy kid. But when I transitioned into working with mostly triathletes and found out they didn’t do dryland exercises, or really knew what the word dryland meant (apparently that’s a swimming term), I decided something had to be done about that. How could I let some of the happiest workouts I used to have when I was younger go unrecognized? Anyway, I’ll stop my rambling and reminiscing and move on to the meat of this post. The best dryland exercises swimmers can do to to benefit their swimming: pull ups and push ups.

Pull ups are really great because they focus on strengthening the same muscles you use during freestyle without needing consistent technical expertise. Meaning that you can safely do them by yourself without a coach watching over your every move. That being said, you should definitely start these exercises with a coach present to make sure you're starting with good form. Having good form is one of the keys to making sure dryland exercises are giving you the most benefit, as well as keeping you injury free.

Pull ups work your back, rear shoulders, and forearms. This move also focuses on strengthening your lats better than any other exercise on the market, which is one of the main muscles used during your freestyle pull. You want to start with your hands shoulder width apart, palms facing away from you. While keeping your shoulders back and down, try to pull your elbows toward the ground. This is my favorite cue to use to help make sure you're engaging the proper muscles for a pull up.

Now if you’re like me and have trouble doing pull ups without assistance, then your best place to start off with is negatives, which strengthen the same muscles without having to actually pull your body up from the ground. A negative is a movement where you stand under a pull up bar, use a box/stool to jump up from and grab the bar, placing your hands slightly wider than shoulder width apart with palms facing away from you. Using the momentum from your jump, pull yourself upward until your chin is above the bar. This is your starting position. Now slowly, and with control, lower yourself while keeping your core tight and focusing on using your lats to bring you back down to the box/stool. Make sure you keep your shoulders and back and down while lowering yourself. This move might sound easy but it can definitely be a tough one. Whenever I do these I’m usually sore for a few days afterwards.

Moving onto the push up, which, done correctly, is an upper body workout AND a core workout. Think plank, but with additional work on your upper body. This combo of strength is what swimming is all about, using your upper body to propel you forward through the water and using your core to stabilize you as you do it.

Both of these exercises can be done without the use of weights and take up very little time. Try adding them to your workout routine 2-3 times a week to start strengthening your swimming muscles. In the beginning you might not notice a difference, but as you progress and get stronger you’ll definitely see some changes in and out of the water. Most notably for me is that I now understand the feeling I’m looking for when I pull during freestyle (which I definitely didn't when I was growing up and swimming 10 times a week).

Doing these dryland moves in conjunction with your normal swim workouts is not only a great way to add strength, but also to give you more body awareness of the movements you’re making in the water.

Jarrett Brumett Guest Series Post #2: How Strength Training Helps You Recover

You just finished a week of your highest volume in the pool yet and you’re drooling over next week’s taper. The taper hits, but you’re still feeling like your limbs are lead. Not only that, but your coach has a dryland session planned for you later and you’re shaking in your Speedo just thinking about trying to lift later. One of two things are going to happen. #1 You hobble out of dryland feeling even worse than before and look for the nearest pillow to cry into. #2 You walk out feeling fresh and re-invigorated from the special methods that were thrown in to help your system recover. How do you accomplish #2? I’m glad you asked.

How Dryland Can Help Your Recovery

We’re so used to thinking of dryland to increase our strength and explosiveness that we rarely look at other potential physiological benefits. Like how it can bring balance back to the autonomic nervous system, increase delivery of blood to recovering tissue, and provide a nice mental break from the repetitiveness of your competition season. There are several ways that this can all be accomplished, the key is to understand some of the physiology at play in order to best implement all of these benefits. 

There are two main physiological systems that I view as being able to be influenced in the weight room for recovery: The Autonomic Nervous System and the Circulatory (cardiovascular and lymphatic) System. Both of these are powerful influences in ensuring that you, the athlete, are fully recovered. They also directly play with your tissue quality, nutrient absorption, and inflammatory profiles. And both have specific ways to maximize their function for recovery.

Working with the Autonomic System

The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is comprised of two parts: the sympathetic (think fight or flight) and parasympathetic (think rest and digest) systems. A common problem when you're over-worked is that you become stuck in a state of sympathetic dominance. Meaning, your parasympathetic system is not performing well and you're never tapping into a good recovery-driven state. The curious thing is that you can also have the sympathetic system be dampened so that you can’t tap into what you need to perform optimally. Or, you could even have it so that they both suck and everything is screwed. It’s never a black and white problem, and as more research comes out, we are starting to see just how complex everything is. One common theme that keeps getting driven home, however, is the need for balance and the importance of developing a good system solely meant to seek out this balance.

This can be done over time with good warm-up and cool-down protocols in every training session. But you need to 100% emphasize this element when creating a program that facilitates recovery. Creating an athlete that can easily turn up or tone down is crucial and can be done by programming with some of the following methods.  

Parasympthetic Coaxing

The 100% best way to improve the function of your parasympathetic nervous system is through breathing drills. In my last post I touched on their importance as well, so I’m not going to beat a dead horse. But starting your session with a postural-based breathing drill and ending it with a relaxing, decompressive breathing drill will go a long way. My personal favorite drill for ALL ATHLETES to perform at the end of their cooldown is Feather Breathing.

Another great way is to put an emphasis on low-threshold, somatic movement (easy and reflexive movement). Some light mobility drills can do this, but the key is that they need to be LIGHT. If the drill causes you to hold your breath, it’s not a good fit for this purpose. There should be no need for feed-forward tension, it should be reflexive and comfortable. I’ve actually found some drills of this style to be very useful for increasing mobility when done correctly, even though they don’t put anything on stretch. Your movement quality and fitness-level will highly influence what is right for you, but there are a few go-to’s that I use for everyone:

Sympathetic Coaxing

As I said earlier, sometimes the sympathetic system may be dampened and needs to be revved up. But, even if it doesn’t, revving it up enough just to stimulate the system can be a very powerful recovery tool. Either way, the key is to give it just enough stimulus without creating more metabolic stress. There are two different ways I like to perform this depending on where you are in your performance schedule and what my overall goal is for the session.

If the goal is still to create a training stimulus, it's best to use a form of dynamic-effort work, as it will still help improve force output. This means that none of your lifts will exceed ~70% of your max, and are done for lower reps and higher sets. This is commonly used in powerlifting circles to help with enhancing recruitment of muscles and rate of force development without adding stress to your system. It’s also good for working on motor patterns that need practice since all these movements are performed with very little fatigue. The trick is to find a total-body movement that is a beneficial for your specific sport, which in this case, is swimming. Personally, I use pushup and pull up variations, or a trap-bar deadlift for my swimmers. With athletes that don’t have true One-Rep-Maxes (in terms of lifting), it highlights the importance in recording training weights and knowing roughly how much weight an athlete can move at a particular rep range. I have found that in general, a resistance that they have previously done for a hard set of 8-10 reps will be about what they should use for dynamic effort. So if one of my teenage female athletes needs a band to perform 8 pullups, she will use that same banded assistance to knock out this method. And the same is true for the opposite end of the spectrum. If an athlete does pushups with 45lbs on their back for a hard set of 10, they will use that same weight for a dynamic effort day.

Programming this is simple, you want to do 6-10 sets of 1-3 reps with anywhere between :30 - :60 seconds rest. You then coach them to perform each rep with the tension and force as if it was a max effort lift.

The other method I will use to stimulate the system is High Resistance Intervals. Ideally this method is performed with a heart rate monitor, but can also be effective with a timed interval. For this method, you choose a ballistic-style movement that never reaches top velocity and also lacks any eccentric loading (read as the lengthening portion of the lift, as in the lowering into a squat).

The eccentric portion of a lift is what is known to create the most micro-tears in the tissue. By removing this portion you are significantly lowering the stress of the movement. You perform that movement, at an intense pace for :08 - :10 seconds, then rest until the heart rate has reached an ideal, rested rate. This ideal will be different for each athlete, but 120 bpm is usually a safe bet for most. The other option is to perform “every minute on the minute,” in which you do your :08 - :10 seconds of work, then active recovery for the rest of the minute.

My personal favorite movement for this method is Rope Slams, as seen below, and then I use specific active recovery drills, as you will see in the next section.

Working with the Cardiovascular and Lymphatic Systems

In a simplified view, these systems work together to not only transport nutrients to your tissues, but also to transport byproducts from your tissue to be processed. So to maximize their influence on recovery, you ideally want to help mobilize nutrients/byproduct and increase fluid flow.

The simplest way to do this is to foam roll. And not even the hardcore foam rolling that everyone seems to think is needed to be effective (because yes, that can be pretty painful). Simply spending 30 seconds of some semi-gentle rolling can be enough to help get some blood into some of your tissue.

The next way that’s almost equally as simple is through dynamic mobility drills. I'm using the term mobility drills as I don’t necessarily mean just passive stretching. Passive stretching has it’s time and place, but I’d much rather see some active, dynamic mobility work. The pulsating tension in dynamic mobility movements has the potential to create a pumping mechanism for fluids and stimulate synovial movement in your joints. My two favorites for swimmers are the Adductor Rockback and the Quadruped Lat Mobility.

The final way to help get some fluid movement is through good ol’ fashioned, steady-state cardio. Keeping you heart rate around 130 bpm (again, this is athlete specific) for 30-60 minutes can be very rejuvenating on your system. At this heart rate, it should also be fast enough to create full expansion of the left ventricle and increase the overall stroke volume of the heart, which can also improve the your overall endurance.

One trick I use with a lot of my swimmers that combines the last two sections is a method I call the Hybrid Cardiac Output Method. It’s pretty simple, you have the athlete keep up their heart rate to the desired BPM by doing dynamic mobility and medicine ball drills. So long as they don’t hold their breath on any of the drills, you will get the increased left ventricle expansion and you will also help to facilitate more blood flow into the tissues that you’re mobilizing. Win-win.

So, if your coach knows any of these methods, then rest assured, you’ll feel better leaving then when you came in. Not only that, you’ll leave a better athlete than when you came in. Next post I’m going to cover how we can maximize the direct performance benefits of strength training for swimmers. Stay tuned!

Not Kicking in Your Triathlon = Bad News

When it comes to the triathletes I know they're always telling me how they need to "conserve their legs" to be able to perform on the bike and the run. So what does this mean to them? It means they kick little to not at all during their swim. Before you try to tell me I’m wrong, I know that at least 75% of you have all thought to yourselves, “if I don’t kick during my swim, I’ll save that much more energy to use for the rest of my race.”

And you know what? I can’t blame you. On paper, that makes complete sense. But in actuality? That’s a terrible idea, and you’ll only be hurting yourself and hindering your race performance if you do so. Having a consistent kick during the swim portion of your triathlon is key to keeping proper body positioning, maintaining rotation, and preventing unnecessary drag from your legs sinking and being pulled behind you.

Think of it this way, have you ever tried to run while keeping your arms motionless and straight at your sides? If you have, please tell me there’s video, because I would pay good money to see that. But seriously, imagine running without the aid of your arms. Not pretty, and it definitely isn’t efficient. Which if you think about it is what we're always aiming to be in these long races, efficient. The same goes for your kick in swimming. Your kick is needed to round out your stroke and keep the rest of your body/arms in line with what they need to be doing.

Don’t get me wrong, you don’t want to go all out and be crazy with your kick either. There’s a sweet spot we’re looking for here. How do you find that sweet spot, you ask? Well, that’s what practice is for! You need to find a pace that you can maintain for the length of your swim, preferably longer, that isn’t detrimental to your energy stores and promotes a balanced and efficient swim. A small kick that stays up at the surface of the water, is driven from your hips, and doesn’t create too much of a splash is what you’re looking for. The best way to figure out this movement? Start by practicing out of the water to get the feel for a good pace and help your body become more aware of the movement goal.

The pace is going to be different for everyone, so don’t go asking your friends how they kick during the swim portion of their triathlons and try to copy them (because if you do 3rd grade is going to call you asking for it's tactic back). Chances are high it’s not going to be right for you.

Put in the time to find that sweet spot. Don’t exit out of this window and keep on not kicking during your swims. If you do, the time and effort you’re putting in to work on technique and all the other aspects of your swim will have been a waste, and your race times will show it.

Worried because you don't know if you have a proper kick or not? Check out our video Kicking on Land to start from scratch and focus on learning each step properly before you even step foot back in the water.

Jarrett Brumett Guest Series Post #1: How Strength Training Can Help Bulletproof You

Necks, shoulders, hips and low backs. The areas that bark out to let you know that you did 4,500 yards yesterday. How can adding more exercise possibly help them to feel better? Well, by addressing the negative affects that a lot of swimming can have on the body:

• Poor Breathing Mechanics and Core Stabilization
• Poor Joint Dissociation and Body Awareness
• Compensatory Shoulder Mechanics
• Excessive Fatigue

I’ve seen these 4 variables time and time again plague elite-level swimmers. It’s why I actually put a priority in addressing them in my programming. Here’s how I do it:

Breathing Mechanics

All of my athletes start off with breathing exercises, whether they’re swimmers or not. It’s mandatory and pays HUGE dividends in how the core functions and it helps to modulate their nervous system into a better state to take load.

Swimmers get an emphasis on breathing work for a few extra reasons:

• It helps to teach them how to create stiffness through their spine.
• It helps to turn off the accessory breathing muscles and keep them from affecting shoulder mechanics
• It can be used to improve thoracic and rib mechanics and address mobility restraints.

Dysfunctional Breathing courtesy of In Pursuit of Yoga

Functional Breathing courtesy of breathing.com

In fact, breathing work is so important for swimming that Dominic and I even made a course on it last year and it’s been spread throughout the world. We’ve had many swimmers reach out to us and note how simple of an intervention it was, yet how much time it shaved off.

Below is a video of one of my favorite drills for teaching diaphragmatic breathing to swimmers.

Once they can own a full breath, I let them practice it for a minute or two to try to really coax more rib expansion and then I move them onto this next drill to teach them how to create core stiffness.

This is incredibly important to address as many swimmers are in the habit of pulling their belly button to their spine, which has been actually proven by EMG to turn off a lot of the core musculature. Teaching them how to engage their abdominal wall and be able to maintain its tension throughout a breath cycle will lead to dramatic changes in spinal mechanics and will significantly help with alleviating stress off the low back. It also brings us into our next point….

Body Awareness

In the early progressions of strength work with a swimmer, it will literally be like watching a fish out of water. I have found that many swimmers have a poor ability to dissociate their joints and create the proper tension to execute many traditional strength movements. I’ve always hypothesized that it’s because the water gives resistance to their movements when they swim and their body gets used to the feedback. Then, when they’re out of the water, the volume of that feedback is significantly reduced, and thus their body awareness decreases. Admittedly, there’s no research to support my theory, but I can site many other strength coaches who have run into similar issues with their aquatic athletes.

The braced breathing work helps to kick start the joint dissociation, but it needs to be expanded upon to have a major effect. The tension from the drill helps to give feedback on spinal positioning. When they can create stiffness and get that feedback, they can prevent it from moving and doing the work. I can’t understate how many times I’ve seen swimmers try to use their spine for exercises. Pushups, rows, hinge work, squats, you name it, and I've seen a spine try to do it. By creating a solid and strong base with the core tension, you can prevent this and slowly build up other movements and teach them how to more appropriately load their joints.

Now even though I just drove home how important tension is for movement feedback, there are other gaps to be filled. You also want to teach the athlete to be able to inhibit their over-recruitment strategies and simply move through specific segments. This is great for those athletes that create high-threshold strategies for simple movements (read: athletes that tense up all the time when they don’t need to). One of my favorites of these drills to drive dissociation home is primal rolling. It’s actually an exercise that was created by a famous PT, named Gray Cook, to help clean up spinal firing patterns and encourage healthy spinal mechanics, which is a added plus for me since I mainly use it to get an athlete able to focus on dissociating limbs from trunk. To perform them, you simply lay on the floor and lift one leg up in the air and use that leg to pull yourself over. Sounds easy, right? Well, try doing that while keeping THE ENTIRE REST OF YOUR BODY LIMP, ESPECIALLY THE OTHER LEG! Not as easy as it sounds. See below.

Again, keep the whole body limp except the active leg. It’s super common to see swimmers shift their hips and try to use their trunk muscles during this movement.

By progressing the appropriate joint loading strategies and increasing the internal feedback, you are essentially making an athlete that will be easier to coach and correct, as well as one that is more body aware and able to detect changes in positioning. This is why it’s so common to have swimmers a month or two into training with me start to talk about how they can actually feel their lats now when they swim. They have better awareness, which gives them better access to the muscle, and then in turn can give them better feedback on accomplishing the movement correctly. Which again, brings us to our next point:

Shoulder Mechanics

If the Greek legend Achilles had been a swimmer, the story would have told of his weakness being his trap, not his heel. Swimmers are notorious for being trap-dominant and having poor shoulder mechanics. It is by far the number 1 complaint I get from my newer athletes.

The problem is that swimming under fatigue can really coax the shoulder into some bad positions, especially in freestyle. The athlete will often ditch using their upper back on the pull and instead try to recruit with the pecs while doing so in what we call downward rotation of the scapula. Think of this as a form of desk-posture. And it’s a pretty bad position to try to emit force from.  

Good strength training should help to place more balance across the shoulder and help to cue the athlete out of these pathological movements. A well thought out program will have a high emphasis on strengthening the upper back and lats as well as promoting that healthy movement and awareness of the shoulder positioning. Below is my favorite drill to give swimmers in their warm up to help warm their shoulders up:

Notice how I cue them to first keep the core tension? The tension creates awareness and then allows them to disassociate their shoulders from their spine. It comes full circle.

Fatigue Management

Fatigue management is probably the most important aspect of injury prevention that no one talks about. It’s actually so important, that SwimBox now offers a special service for it. And yes, strength training can help. Or I should say, it can help to prepare the system to take on more stress when implemented at the right time of year.

If an athlete starts strength training at a time of year when their swim volume is low, it will allow them to build their system up and condition their joints and tissue to be able to take on more work. That is why it’s called Strength AND Conditioning. We are conditioning the body to be able to do more and better work. To be fair, if a swimmer is regularly doing an ignorant amount of yardage and their body can’t keep up, it won’t matter how much strength work has been done or how much recovery work is implemented, they’re cruising for a bruising.

The important thing to note here is that the harder and more intense strength work is done when swimming is on the lighter side. When the athlete is building large amounts of volume, that is when strength work should be manipulated to accommodate all the stress that is already on their system, not add to it.

The manipulation doesn’t have to just be in pulling back on the amount, it can actually be manipulated in such a manner that it stimulates recovery. If a swimmer is really building volume and they’re showing high signs of fatigue, a strength session can be written to facilitate recovery and give them a bit more juice to get them through their build problem-free.

How can you make a dry-land session so that it helps the athletes to recover? The answer may actually surprise you, but you will have to wait for my next post to find out!