Swimming Dryland Training
My new project with GAINswim
“Work on athleticism not swimmingism” Nick Folker
About 14 years ago, I met Nick Folker at one of the GAIN conferences in Houston. It was he who opened my eyes to a structured method for what swim coaches call ‘Dryland’ training. I learnt more from him than I had in the previous ten years of talking with swim coaches.
Nick Folker
My previous impression of “dryland” training as commonly conducted is that it’s an Omnishambles.
A random series of therabands, medicine balls and “core” exercises that are thrown together based upon which YouTube video the coach had watched the night before or copied from “what I did when I was swimming”.
When I would ask why they did this or that exercise or what the progressions were, I would get, “It’s dryland training, so it’s up to u,s swimming coaches to design it.”
Watching Nick speak was a breath of fresh air: he is an Olympian, but more importantly, he had looked carefully at what is needed to make swimmers faster. He avoided the need to follow the herd.
Nick’s key tips are listed below.
My work with GAINswim
Over the last seven months, I have been working with Chris Webb on a project with GAINswim. We’ve developed an online network for swim coaches and swim teams that provides excellent weekly content and the opportunity to interact with world-class experts from within swimming and the broader coaching community.
I’m delighted with the result. It’s been a chance to share and develop ideas. I’m presenting at the annual clinic in Carmel, Indiana, next month too.
Top Dryland Training Tips
1. Posture is key
Posture is as important in swimming, as it is in every sport. Keeping a streamlined position means there is less drag in the water.
Technique is important, with a common fault being over-rotation, which then forces the swimmer to have to rotate back the other way, creating more turbulence.
Land training must help improve the posture and control of the body, which then aids the swimming technique.
(This is the same as in other sports such as cricket, where physical development leads to technical development. It is difficult to conduct fielding practice if you are unable to lunge low and deep.
2. “Swimming chooses the athlete”
Swimmers often suffer from poor posture, poor lifestyle, are over-specialised, and have a low overall athletic ability. This has to be accounted for when beginning coaching.
3. Power and force production
When trying to Run Faster, we want the maximum amount of force produced in the minimal amount of ground contact time: we want to “run in the air”.
Swimmers need the opposite: a long contact time to produce force and a minimal amount of time recovering from the stroke.
Nick Folker called this his “Aha” moment after seeing Gary Winckler present.
This has implications for strength training: most swimmers break down because they are unable to maintain force production. It is a power endurance issue.
The choice of exercise is also important: too much rotation causes problems. The rotation needs to be minimal, but linking between the upper body and hips for the long-axis strokes (freestyle & backstroke) is important. The hip hinge is more important for the short-axis strokes (breaststroke & butterfly).
Nick uses exercises that have the feet off the floor and have the hands and feet as far away as possible to practise this linking. These are placed towards the end of the session, after the heavier lifting has taken place.
4. Things to avoid
Nick had some take-home points about specific things to avoid:
Hypertrophy training: no place for swimmers as a goal in itself.
Slow movements for pros: the % of improvement is minuscule for professionals. Has its place in developing athletes.
General circuit training: Why burn the candle at both ends?
Running: why do “cardio” when they do that enough in the pool?
Barbell snatch: causes shoulder stiffness because hands are in the wrong position for swimming.
5. Things to Consider
Pliometrics in 99% of the workouts: even if it is only 1-2 jumps
Train in the gym first, then the pool: this links to adaptation/application.
Weighted pull-ups: rather than max pull-ups, it is how much load they can lift for 2-3 reps (50+kg for the sprinters). Wide grip for breaststroke and butterfly, narrow for freestyle/backstroke.
Single-leg work: helps the swimmers on the blocks. Tall athletes find it hard to get down to start; they wobble before they dive!
Scapular stability: the cornerstone of the upper body workout. This is different from single joint theraband exercises that allegedly work the rotator cuff.
Buy my books on Amazon.
absolutely agree here, used to have an image of Scholich's book in one of my presentations. I would emphasise that the "circuit" I was talking about for youngsters, was where a series of exercises done with correct form. The sequence e.g., upper>trunk>lower allowed sufficient rest period for this, whilst at the same time taking up less time than the "set" method. It was used generally in "anatomical adaptation" and the "adaptation", in this case "volume" could be increased by adding extra exercises to the circuit, increasing the number of exercises or increasing the number of circuits.
It is not to be confused by a Crossfit style circuit, or what I saw in the past at Local Authority Sport Centres where a lot of unfit middle aged people would sweat profusely whilst jogging between stations where they performed "half" press ups, "hinging sit ups" and "squat lack of thrusts".
I do think the Crossfit type circuit can have a place, but.... it is for developing aerobic endurance along with some muscular endurance and power endurance as a general form of exercise.
As a casual observer my thoughts are: I would break swimming into three components, the dive, the swim & the turn
The dive: the swimmer needs to respond to the "gun" in the shortest time without compromising the length & quality of the dive. That means reducing the immortization time in plyometric exercises as well as improving "height". Most swimmers use a split stance so at least some of the plyos must use this stance
The turn: the swimmer is in a very deep squat position and is pushing off against water resistance. Do we use a squat, or dare I say heretically a horizontal leg press to generate leg power? Do we use bands to mimic the increased resistance at the end of the "squat"
The swim: the pecs and lats do most of the upper body work, if I remember correctly there is quite strong correlation between pull up strength and swimming strength. Clearly unwanted rotational and up and down movements are to be minimised - hence the requirement for "stability" exercises that help. (Elaborate exercises using cables etc., whilst the body is in an unstable horizontal position can be used). Rotator cuff is an area of potential injury, this can be trained with cables, DBs and BW exercises- the exclusive use of bands is not optimal as the "strength curve" rarely matches that found in athletic activities. Scapula stabilisation exercises again should be part of all strength exercises and can again be trained largely with DBs, BBs, BW and cable exercises- the clue being in "stabilisation" as to how these should be performed
Random thoughts:
The snatch is a great exercise but does have a tendency to irritate shoulder impingements- why do an exercise that is potentially going to keep your swimmer out of the water? A clean grip snatch or a SA DB snatch would produce a similar movement without compromising the shoulder
Circuits: pointless, you are already getting muscular endurance in the pool. Only use with a beginner to provide some "anatomical adaptation". Use weights to improve strength, power & reduce injury
Hypertrophy: A small may be required in early stages of youth development as a "general preparation", but after that probably not - most swimmers have ample muscle mass from swimming and extra superfluous muscle has to be "carried" through the water