Swimming is a diverse sport that uses practically all the muscles in the body. It’s great for cardio vascular fitness and can also help boost metabolism in helping people effectively loose weight. People swim for a variety of reasons. Some do so for recreation, competition, and fitness. There are open water settings as well as pool settings. Swimming can be hard to adapt to and learn form some while others take off with it pretty well. Either way there are some great dry land training techniques you can use to train for swimming. Here are some basic suggestions you can use below to enhance your swimming performance through the use of dry land exercises.
There are three areas to focus on when dry land training for swimming they go from the legs, to the core, to the upper body. Here are some reasons why and some exercises you can do at home.
LOWER BODY
Your legs are the most important portion of your body in terms of acting as a power reserve in swimming. They help you kick and bring home a race when you are feeling fatigued at the end and have no energy reserves left in your arms to finish strong.
They are the largest muscles you will use in the water and therefore you should train them quite well to build power and strength.
Jump Roping
This is a great exercise both that’s both cardiovascular and helps build endurance. You can use a regular jump rope or a thick twine one from a hardware store for extra resistance. You can break up the interval sets into 3×30 second ones or see how long you can go before you reach a state of fatigue.
Platform/Box Jumps
You can do box or bleacher jumps to help build your strength in your legs for kicking and vascular endurance. You pick a raised platform of some such and perform jumping exercises onto and off of the box. Again you can do the set in 3 sets of 10 or 15 perhaps or for one set until exhaustion.
Please make sure to use safety. As you fatigue you may not have the same jumping height towards the end of the set and could slip and hit your shin or chin. So please use extra caution.
MID SECTION
Crunches
You can do a set of 3 x 30 crunches with a proper crossing and relaxation of your arms while lifting from the center of your chest.
Planks
Planks can be a substitute for crunches if there is too much pressure on the neck. Planks are used when remaining in a prone position on your toes while using your elbows to support yourself. You use your core to stabilize the body while relaxing the neck.
UPPER BODY-Stretch cordz
Sitting Rows
Sitting down pull the stretch cordz to your sides while keeping your elbows in.
Reverse Fly’s
Grab both cords and pull raising your arms shoulder width apart and carefully squeezing your shoulders together.
Long Pulls
Grab both cordz and pull straight back evenly and symmetrically with your arms.
These basic exercises will help you garner some extra strength with some extra muscle tone as well in your swimming endeavors. You can do most sets in 3 sets of 15 or until exhaustion.
Thanks for reading and please use the utmost safety when performing these exercises to get maximum benefit.
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