When swimming, you not only need a good position in the water an efficient technique but also a specific power to generate maximum propulsion – you can only do that through effective strength training for swimming.
Since swimming is the essential part of becoming a lifeguard, the swimming instructor in lifeguard class stresses some exercises that you can use to improve your push phase in swimming. For the pressure phase, for example, you need a lot of strength.
For this, it is necessary to do strength exercises in dry conditions apart from the “normal” swimming training in order to increase your strength. You don’t have to go to the gym for that. There are enough exercises with your own body weight or just with a simple pull rope or resistance b that will help you to get to a higher level of performance in swimming.
Why Extra Strength Training For Swimming?
The first foremost thing is that you shouldn’t think that you absolutely need “big muscles” for swimming in order to increase your performance. Even during a lifeguard class, you do not need big muscles but swimming stamina. Specific strength training means that you should strengthen the muscle groups that you need for freestyle swimming or other types of swimming. This lays the foundation for training in the water, makes you more flexible prevents injuries, just like running or cycling.
Targeted Strength Exercises
The comparison between the elements of l water makes it clear why it is so important to carry out targeted strength exercises in the dry. Because the whole body is in motion in the water. And the faster you pull through the water, the higher the water resistance. And the higher the resistance, the slower the movements because the muscles tire.
Especially with longer distances in triathlon, it is important that you delay fatigue that you can swim quickly economically for a long time. When you are being trained in a lifeguard class you are taught that the physical properties of the water do not allow you to specifically train your muscles.
It is possible to train your strength coordination skills more specifically with paddles, fins pull buoys, but the fact is: you can “quiet” your body on l. There isn’t this varying resistance you can better focus on certain muscle groups.
What Strength Skills Are There?
Swimming is primarily about training your strength in the drive muscles. In order to better underst which power ability is really important for this, I will briefly introduce it to you, but I will not go into too much depth. I deliberately do not go into the reactive force, as this is more common in ball sports:
Maximum Power:
Maximum strength is the greatest possible force that an athlete can exert against resistance. The athletes have to cope with a high weight. It forms the basis for the other forces. (heavyweight, 1-5 reps, long rest between sets)
Speed Strength:
In the case of explosive strength, on the other h, fast explosive movements should be carried out. (medium weight, 8-15 explosive reps)
Strength Endurance:
You should maintain a high level of exertion over a longer period of time in order to push your fatigue limit. (15-20 repetitions, maximum 1-minute break)
What Strength Skills Do You Need?
Until now, strength endurance training on l has mainly been used in swimming triathlon. In the meantime, the American Lifeguard Association is convinced that maximum strength training should not be neglected in order to increase your performance. This should be better combined with water training since you can then bring more power into the water.
The Lifeguard classes have a lot to teach you about being strong in water l. But a distinction must be made between top athletes amateur athletes. For competitive athletes who only focus on swimming, it is guaranteed to be an advantage to regularly do maximum strength training with heavy weights in order to achieve international success. In triathlon, two other disciplines have to be trained in addition to swimming.
Depending on what kind of ambitious goals you are aiming for, it is not necessary to go to the gym train with machines dumbbells. You can do effective strength training with a Therab, the pull rope or your own body weight. And these training aids are also available in different strengths so that you will find the right one for you.
Conclusion:
Swimming is an exercise of the whole body it takes a lot of body strength to perform a good swim in the water. The American Lifeguard Association is offering lifeguard classes for more than 3 decades now they have produced more than 250,000 lifeguards all over the world. ALA gives importance to the on-l training to perform better in water to save rescue people.
For more on this subject, contact us to find a lifeguard class near you.
