TRAINING SWIMMERS
Jonathan Messner, MS, CSCS
I have been fortunate to work with some incredibly talented swimmers in the past year. I have compiled the following notes based on the training we have done.
1. Swimmers are Prone to Overuse Injuries
According to a study by Weldon and Richardson, upwards of 80% of swimmers suffer from shoulder pain and almost every swimmer who has entered my facility has had prior pain, usually in the shoulder or the neck.
It has been estimated that a collegiate swimmer performs more than 1 million swimming strokes annually. Some of the athletes who come to my facility, in certain parts of their training cycle, will swim upwards of 8 miles a day. Is this too much? I’m not sure. Are 100 miles a week for distance runners too much? I’m not sure of that either, but what I do know is that every single distance runner I know (and I know lots of runners) who run half that distance have orthopedic issues.
Side note: Injuries may not coincide with intense pain. A seemingly innocent “tweak” or a “twinge” either in the neck, shoulder, or scapulae, especially in a young adult, could be a sign of a potentially catastrophic problem down the road (disk herniations, torn labrums, etc.)
2. Swimmers are Really Weak
Most of the swimmers I have tested in my facility have shown weakness in a few key areas: the middle/lower trapezius musculature (the area around the shoulder blades), the scapular retractors (the area underneath the shoulder blades), and the gluteal maximus and the gluteal medius musculature (the buttocks.) This makes sense considering swimmers new to my strength-training program tend to hike their shoulders while performing upper body exercises and they struggle with lower body unilateral exercises.
Exploring this data further, if swimmers hike their shoulders while doing pushups or rows, what is to stop them from hiking their shoulders while swimming? During the swim cycle a hiked shoulder will lead to scapular instability and glenohumeral instability (think pulling the arm out of its socket.) Also, if swimmers are unable to extend their hips properly, because their glutes are too weak, they over-use the muscles in their low back or leg. This places compressive force on the spine and/or stress in the anterior hip socket.
Hiked shoulders and rounded shoulders, as well as poor hip function, also have a neuromuscular shut-off effect on the core musculature (i.e. abdominals, obliques, erector spinae.)
Couple this with the amount of time these kids spend seated in the classroom with poor posture (thoracic rounding and lumbar flexion) and you have quite an interesting predicament.
3. A Strength Training Program Can Fill Two Specific Needs for a Swimmer: Injury Reduction and Power Output
The primary job of a strength-conditioning specialist is injury reduction. An injury reduction program can help the swimmer extend his or her “swimming-life” so that her or she can train more consistently longer (not to mention the ethical reasoning behind this type of training – long term health of the athlete, etc.)
A proper strength and conditioning program should also address the start and the turn in swimming. The ability to “pop” off the blocks or the wall is a teachable skill. Increasing the concentric output of the hip extensors can be done through sound strength and plyometric progressions.
4. Strength Training May Not Be a Viable Tool for Creating a Faster Swimmer
To answer your question, "no", I do not sit at home and think of ways to be unpopular.
In their study on dry-land resistance training for swimming, Tanaka et. al. found that swim time was not improved following a strength training cycle.
“In this investigation, dry-land resistance training did not improve swimming performance despite the fact that the swim and resistance training group was able to increase the resistance used during strength training by 25-35%. The lack of a positive transfer between dry-land strength gains and swimming propulsive force may be due to the specificity of training.” (Tanaka, Costill, Thomas, Fink, Widrick, 1993)
Trying to mimic the actions of a sport in the weight room not only does not carry over into the sport itself, but also puts the athlete at a greater risk for overuse trauma. By adding dumbbells and/or resistance bands to a dry-land stroke, you are in essence, ramping up the “mileage” on the swimmer’s body.
At the end of the day, what is the major limiting factor for a swimmer? It is the swimming stroke! You can only do it so many times before the body says “enough!” The same thing with running, throwing a baseball, swinging a tennis racquet, and even a static task such as sitting (which is why back pain is an epidemic in the West.)
The swimmers I have been working with have given me insight into both the
physiological and psychological trends of their sport, which have contributed to the evolution of my strength and conditioning programs across all sports.
The most important thing I have learned from working with these athletes is this: keep them healthy.
References
1. Tanaka H, Costill DL, Thomas R, Fink WJ, Widrick JJ. Dry-land resistance training for competitive swimming. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise (1993). 25(8):952-9]
2. Weldon E, Richardson A. Upper Extremity Overuse Injuries in Swimmer’s Shoulder. Clinics in Sports Medicine. (2001). 20(3):423-438.