Proper Planning for Dryland Training

Strength training is a necessary component to a swimmers training regimen.  Without a strength training program a coach leaves his swimmers at more of a risk for muscle imbalances, weaknesses, and inefficiencies, which can lead to injuries and at best will result in swimmers not reaching their potential. It is necessary to include training outside of the water but it takes careful planning to make sure that the content of work is quality and good use is made of this time spent.   

 An efficient team training format combined with the proper planning and exercise selection allows a coach to address the many different needs of a strength program in a very time efficient format. An organized dryland program will allow coaches to manipulate different variables such as volume, load, speed and other methods of increasing or decreasing intensity. Doing so will allow proper periodization which is crucial to peak performance!

One of our main goals is injury prevention.  We realize that in swimming many overuse injuries exist.  By using a total body approach to our strength program we address many of the issues that result in our injuries, namely joint instability and muscle imbalances.  We also want to emphasize that teaching the proper technique of an exercise is necessary before putting them in a timed circuit that is moving at a fast pace. Running your athletes through a high tempo circuit where everyone has poor technique is pointless.  Exercises should be performed slowly at first to make sure they are performed correctly. We teach them one at a time until proper form is attained.  Never perform an exercise in a range of motion that shows lack of control, this is so important to ensure the athlete stays injury free.  Once control is shown with good technique then it is time to apply it in a circuit format.

The long term goal of these circuits is for an athletes power, ability to tolerate lactic acid, core strength, total body strength, and joint stability all to increase.  As we mentioned earlier, if the athlete is hurt then none of these goals will be achieved! Train Hard but more importantly Train Smart!



SHOULDER STABILITY: TAKING A FUNCTIONAL APPROACH

Shoulder injuries are way to common in swimming and have hindered the careers of many talented athletes that have the potential to swim at elite levels. The most important factor in maximizing ones potential is staying injury free. It doesn't matter how hard an athlete trains in the pool or in the gym, if they are injured they are not operating at 100%. This means, keeping the shoulders healthy is the #1 priority.

 
On many occasions a swimmer will wait until he or she has a shoulder injury and then begin physical therapy. This is obviously not a very proactive approach. At IHPSWIM we prefer to "prehab" instead of waiting for the injury to happen and then having to rehab it. The best time to start a program for shoulder stability is when the shoulder is still healthy!
 
Now that the importance of "prehabing" has been established we can take a look at the training approach we have.  One of the main reasons injuries happen is lack of shoulder stability. Specifically, the shoulder is not stable in the overhead position, and therefore most vunerable. If the shoulder is not strong and stable in the overhead position it most likely will result in inflammation, tendinitis, and much more if the problem continues to progress. Traditional methods have us doing isolated rotator cuff exercises with the arm locked at the side of the body (see figure 1A). One issue with this exercise is that it isolates the rotator cuff and this muscle is never isolated by itself in swimming. It works in conjunction with many other muscles to provide stability in the shoulder joint. The second issue is swimmers need to be stable through multiple ranges of motion and most importantly in the overhead position since this is where the problem occurs. Clearly this exercise and other isolated rotator cuff exercises do not fulfill these requirements.
 
Here is one of our favorite exercises that we use to provide stability through multiple ranges of motion (see figure 1B).  As you can see we use the flexibar which gives a vibratory stimulus and move it through multiple planes of motion. 
 
                            
       Figure 1 A                                                             Figure 1B
This is just one example of the many functional shoulder exercises that we have. We have a lot more exciting stuff coming to you in the next couple of weeks related to this topic so stay tuned! I hope you enjoyed this blog today and if you have any questions please feel free to email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

The Integration of Shoulder Exercises into You Program

 

Recently we have been bringing you some of our favorite shoulder and core exercises but today we will discuss how to integrate them into your program. Many people have asked how to balance swimming, strength/dryland training and shoulder prehab exercises throughout every week. That is a lot of different training sessions and can be very time consuming.

 

The easiest way is to integrate a shoulder routine and a dryland program together in the same session. This is more time efficient and allows more time to rest and recover during the week.

 

The first type of integration is the warm up method. This works great when the focus on training is the upper body. Start out with 3 sets of 10 of your favorite shoulder exercise to warm up the upper body. This is often referred to as a “functional warm up”. General warm ups are often done before a workout but don’t provide that much of a benefit. This functional warm up provides a specific function and purpose while at the same time warming up the muscles for the workout that is about to be performed.

 

The second way to integrate shoulder exercises into a dryland program is the hybrid method. This means that when the focus is on legs a shoulder exercise is performed in between sets. Instead of taking a rest between sets the shoulder exercise is used as an active rest period. Here is an example below.

 

Lunges 3 x 15reps per leg

 

Stability Ball Lockout 3 x 30 sec

 

Alternate between the sets of Lunges and SB Lockouts. While the legs are resting the shoulder is getting its prehab work!

 

These are just a couple ideas to help with the design of your training program. We discuss many different ways to design a program in our LAPS: Functional Dryland Training for Swimmers DVD.

 

We have plenty more to come with shoulder prehab. Look for our next exercise that will be out next week!

 

Traditional and Functional Exercises

We have just started our 14 week dryland program and are integrating traditional weights with functional exercises. When we use the term “functional exercises” or functional training, we are referring to exercises that train movements that are specific to swimming Traditional exercises focus on the isolation of muscles and today we integrate the two together in a workout.

We perform the exercises in pairs. For example, when doing 3 sets of lat pulldowns (traditional) we will perform planks (functional exercise) in between each set. This allows use to get some good functional core work in between each set of lat pulldowns. Once 3 sets of each are performed we move on to the next circuit or pair of exercises. Below is the workout we did today.

Barbell Squats 3 x 12

Stability Ball Lockouts (shoulder stability) 3 x 30 sec

Lat pulldowns 3 x 12

Planks (core and shoulder stability) 3 x 30 sec

Machine Rows 3 x 12

Twisters (Core Rotation) 3 x 20

Machine Cable Press 3 x 12

Supermans                 3 x 12

Tricep Extensions     3 x 12

Overhead Band Snatch 3 x 10

Today was very basic since we are just starting. We call this our adaptation phase. I will keep everyone posted on how we change the workout in weeks to come.