Olivier Poirier-Leroy is a former national level swimmer based out of Victoria, BC. In feeding his passion for swimming, he has developed YourSwimBook, a powerful log book and goal setting guide made specifically for swimmers. Sign up for the YourSwimBook newsletter (free) and get weekly motivational tips by clicking here.
This swimming workout was submitted by Alex Keyser of Asbury University. He incorporates dry-land moves from the popular P90x and Insanity fitness videos — which he used in his own life to drop some post-collegiate swimming weight gain.
Here is one such set he gives his swimmers:
My favorite set is based on lactic acid development/tolerance. It is a combination of swimming fast through fatigue, along with dry-land work.
It starts with 45 seconds to 1:00 minute of stretch cord work behind the starting block. The swimmers either do seated rows, flies, or double arm pull backs similar to the finish on butterfly/freestyle.
The swimmers get on the block to swim either a 50 or 100 all out for time. Sometimes I designate it to be specialty or freestyle.
After the swim, they hop out and make their way around the pool deck doing 4-6 different dry-land moves for 30-45 seconds each. The dry-land moves change each time we do this set. We usually do it every 3 weeks during the season. They get “rest” by walking to the next station. I break the team into different heats based on what they will be swimming.
Here is how I write out the workout:
8X Through
:45 Seconds Stretch Cords
50/100 Fast off the Block
:30 Push-Ups with two medicine balls
:30 Plank
:30 Power Squats
:30 Ski Abs
Rest until next cycle.
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Problem is there is no way to measure intensity of a lot of those exercises. Sure, in an ideal world each athlete will go as hard as possible on the 40 seconds of band work, but who knows if thats really happening.