Swimming

Swimming

Peak Points

* Focus primarily on form.

* Swim with your whole body, not just your arms and legs.

* Mix weight-room training with in-pool exercises for maximum performance.

Think of the pool as a liquid gym—a damp and dynamic circuit trainer that works out every major muscle group, plus your heart and lungs, often all at the same time.

Whether you swim for sport or for exercise, the big challenges to aquatic action are probably more cardiovascular than muscular. "Swimming is a very aerobic sport," says John McVan, aquatic specialist at Iowa State University in Ames. "It's certainly a good workout for the arms, legs, back, chest, torso and so on, but you have to build up your heart and lung capacity to be really good."

Mastering the Water

We'll tell you what exercises will make you a better swimmer in a bit, along with how to use your pool as a workout tool. But when it comes to swimming at your peak level, first and foremost is the issue of technique.

"Most people don't know how to breathe, don't know how to distribute their weight in the water and don't know how to make themselves more hydrodynamic—how to be more slippery in the water," says Terry Laughlin, director of the Total Immersion adult swimming camp in Goshen, New York. "You could be the strongest man in the world, but if you don't have good technique and form, none of that muscle will do you the least bit of good."

Here, then, are some tricks from our experts to being smoother, sleeker and faster in the water.

Swim with your body. The first step to being a better, stronger swimmer is accepting that everything you learned in your old swim classes at the Y is probably wrong. For starters, stop thinking of your arms and legs as the things that propel you through the water.

"Think of swimming as an all-body exercise. Your power is not in your arms and legs, it's in how you position your whole body, how you can make it faster and sleeker. Your arms are important, but they account for about 10 percent of what can make you a good swimmer," says John Troup, Ph.D., former director of medicine and sports science for the U.S. Olympic Swimming Team.

Swim downhill. Your lower body is heavier and denser than your upper body, so your legs drag. If you try to compensate by kicking harder, you'll just exhaust yourself. Instead, Laughlin suggests, lean on your chest as you swim. This will keep your hips and legs near the surface, he says. You should notice your hips and legs feeling lighter, as if the water were supporting more of your body weight.

Swim taller. Stretching your hand forward before pulling makes your body longer, allowing it to slip through the water more easily, says Laughlin. If you use your hand to lengthen your body line rather than using it to push water back, you'll contribute far more to your speed. As each hand enters the water, reach out before starting your pull. Don't rush the motion, Laughlin cautions. Your hand should reach forward at the same speed your body is moving forward.

Get power from your hips. It's your hips, rather than your shoulders, that are your engine. Roll them from side to side to make your stroke more powerful and rhythmic. When you begin to pull, use your arm and shoulder muscles to hold onto the water as your body roll pulls you through the water, says Laughlin. You should feel your stroke rhythm in your midsection as it rolls back and forth rather than in your arm turnover.

Rotate your breathing. When you've mastered swimming on your side, think about how you're breathing, too. Roll your body to the side, and breathe as you do. If you breathe by turning or lifting your head, your legs will sink and break your trim swim form.

A B

C D E

Perfect your stroke. Keep in mind that your arms are major players in what propel you effectively through the water. You'll want to spend some quality time working on that stroke so you're not "hacking"—chopping your way inefficiently across the pool. "You might feel like you got a good workout after something like that, but in a practical sense, it's no way to swim," explains McVan. According to our experts, this is:

A Entry. Watch where your hand enters the water—ideally, say swim experts, you want it entering the water about 8 to 12 inches short of your full arm extension. Don't extend your arm, though, until after it's in the water. Position your hand at about a 30-degree angle to the water, palm facing away from your head.

B Down sweep. With your hand in the water, now is the time to fully extend your arm. Your shoulder should come down into the water, too; this will help you rotate your hips and shoulders and help give your body the efficient corkscrew spin you want.

C Inward sweep. Turn your hand so your fingers start coming back toward your body. You'll be bending your arm now, so keep your elbow up and pull your hand back toward your waist.

D Up sweep. Once your hand passes your lower ribs, push back with the heel of your hand. Now rotate your wrist so your little finger is the first one to leave the water.

E Recovery. Your arm is out and ready for the next stroke. Try to keep it relaxed. Raise your elbow up out of the water and let your forearm dangle from it as you swing forward into the water again. Don't windmill—raising your arm straight over your head. That will only slow you down.

Powering Up for the Pool

Swimming requires as much explosive power as it does endurance. "Unless you use it as a form of exercise where you're simply swimming laps, swimming is a sport that requires a lot of explosiveness if you're going to get good at it," says Dr. Troup.

You can build that strength on dry land, suggests Dr. Troup, by using weights as well as rubber stretch cords to help you do additional resistance training. (Gyms and fitness stores may carry rubber stretch cords; price varies from around $10 for a simple tube with handles to over $50 for a more elaborate kit.) But some of the best training you can give yourself will be through drills in the water. Here are a few conditioning ideas from our experts that incorporate the best of both worlds.

Weight Lifts

Shoulder Exercises

Your shoulders are important because they help control not only the power of your arms but also their form as you slice through the water. Where shoulders are concerned, you don't want to build up huge amounts of muscle, but you do want to be toned. In addition, you want your major joints limber and ready to help propel you through the water. Shoulder exercises will do both, according to Dr. Troup. The inclined bench press will work your shoulders, arms and chest. You should also do upright rows and lat pull-downs to target your shoulder muscles exclusively.

Abdominal Exercises

The stronger your abdominal muscles are, the quicker you'll be able to maneuver the rest of your body when you swim. "The abdominals are key, because they help you move your hips and legs, and they keep you turning through the water," points out Dr. Troup. To keep your abs in top form, you should do various forms of crunches; good ones include regular, raised-leg and oblique.

Stroke Drills

To improve your stroke, Laughlin suggests swimming laps by stroking with only one arm, while keeping the other straight out in front of you. Or do catch-up drills: Keep your right arm outstretched all the way through the left arm's movement. Then, when you've brought your left arm forward and it starts to cover your right, stroke with your right arm.

Kick Drills

One of the best swim drills to help you find your balance in the water is to swim laps by kicking only. Put your arms straight out in front of you and kick (it's also a great leg exercise). Concentrate on where your balance is. Breathe by moving your chin forward and lifting your head up slightly. This will momentarily put you off balance, so work to "press the buoy" (the spot in your upper chest where your buoyancy resides) quickly to find your balance again as soon as possible.

Cross Jumps

Underwater explosive exercises and routines work wonders on otherwise landlocked legs, says McVan, who designs aquatic aerobics classes. This jump is great for working the side and front of your thighs as well as your glutes, all important muscles for helping you dive and move through the water. Start by standing in water up to your waist, your feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, hands at your side.

Now jump straight up, crossing your right leg in front of your left as you jump. As you start to come back down, return your feet to the starting position. Repeat, this time crossing your left leg in front of your right. (For clarity, the accompanying photos were shot out of water.)

Split Jumps

This jump also works most of your upper-leg muscles, including the muscles on the inside and outside of your thighs. Start by standing in waist-high water, your feet together, knees slightly bent and arms extended from your sides for better balance.

Jump straight up, and extend your legs out to the sides as you leap. Return to the starting position.

Squat Jumps

This is another leaping exercise for your quads and glutes. Stand in waist-high water, your legs about hip-width apart, arms at your sides. Squat down so your butt is parallel to the pool floor.

Pushing off from your heels, leap straight up. As you come back down, try to land on your toes, then the balls of your feet, then your heels. Return to the squatting position and repeat.

Note: As you get stronger, you can move all of these exercises into chest-high water, just to make the jumping a little harder.

Stopping Pain at a Stroke

One of the greatest things about aquatic exercise is that it's both hard and easy—easy on the joints, that is.

"Because swimming is not a weight-bearing activity, it doesn't cause as much stress on joints as other exercises," points out John McVan, aquatic specialist at Iowa State University in Ames. "Although swimming is an excellent sport for everyone, it's especially good for people who have back pain or arthritis." As McVan points out, either condition usually forces men into a more sedentary existence, which only makes their joint and back pain worse. "Swimming, on the other hand, will get these men mobile, get their blood flowing and take some of the strain off their injured joints while they're doing it."

Acing Aquatic Ailments

Swimming may be a great way to get your exercise, but it's also a sport fraught with some unusual hazards. Here's a short list of potential pool-borne perils and ways you can beat them so they won't keep you out of the water.

Swimmer's Ear

Cause: This is an infection of the outer ear and ear canal caused by chronic exposure to moisture. Soggy skin in the ear canal allows bacteria and fungus to penetrate the skin and cause pain, swelling, itching and a plugged feeling. In severe or untreated cases, it can lead to dizziness, deeper ear infection and hearing loss.

Remedy: Prevention is best—use earplugs to keep your ear canals dry. If water gets into your ear, tip your head to the side and down, pull outward on your ear and drain the water, suggests David R. Nielsen, M.D., chairman of the Professional Relations and Public Education Committee of the American Academy of Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery. If you don't have a history of a perforated or ruptured ear, you can try over-the-counter ear drops, he suggests. These are usually made from alcohol and acetic acid. You can also make your own by mixing equal amounts of rubbing alcohol and white vinegar.

Swimmer's Eye I

Cause: Eyes can get sore and bleary from chlorinated water.

Remedy: Invest in a pair of padded swimmer's goggles, suggests Paul F. Vinger, an ophthalmologist from Concord, Massachusetts, and eye medical consultant to the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Swimmer's Eye II

Cause: This affects contact lenswearers only. Pool water can cause contacts to dry out and stick to your eyeballs.

Remedy: If your lenses get stuck, don't try to pry them out, warns Dr. Vinger. Instead, wait 30 minutes after getting out of the pool or rehydrate your contacts with saline solution before taking them out.

Swimmer's Hair

Cause: Chlorine from pool water turns your hair brittle and, in some cases, discolors it, giving your coif a greenish tint.

Remedy: To help reduce the damage from chlorine, wash, rinse and condition your hair immediately after getting out of the pool. Meanwhile, avoid direct sunlight, which intensifies the effect of the chlorine, says Gregory Miller, head of the color department for Vidal Sassoon in New York.

Swimmer's Teeth

Cause: Chemicals in gas-chlorinated water erode tooth enamel. This can lead to discoloration and chipping over time. (This usually affects fitness swimmers, people who swim at least once a day.)

Remedy: Keep your mouth shut in the water, except to breathe, suggests Steven J. Filler, D.D.S., associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Turning On the Water Works

Now that you know the particulars of powerful pool performance, you'll want to put them all together for a total water workout. "Working out with water is just like working out with weights. You don't want to dive right in and start doing laps until you drop. You want to start with a five- or ten-minute warm-up, then do several different drills or aquatic exercises. Then you'll want to have a cooldown phase," says McVan.

Unlike a weight-based routine that would build only strength, your water workouts should focus mainly on building technique and improving heart and lung capacity, with a few explosive exercises thrown in as well. To build your own aquatic exercise routine, follow our experts' suggestions below. If you decide to do a regular swimming workout, keep it to every other day. We've broken the exercises up Chinese-menu style—just pick one from each section.

The Warm-Up

In and Outs

From a diving board or the side of the deep end of the pool, enter the water via a feet-first jump, cannonball, dive or even a jackknife. Then swim to the nearest ladder, climb up, walk briskly to your original entry point and begin again. After about six to ten repeats, you'll have elevated your heart rate, unknowingly worked on "body-streamlining" and experienced a little unconventional water fun to boot, says McVan.

Press Your Buoy

This is a good warm-up for beginners. Spend five minutes trying to find your balance by kicking face-down in the water and pressing the "buoy." (To remind you: That's the spot in your chest where your buoyancy resides.) Breathing will cause you to get off-balance each time you raise your head to inhale. As part of the exercise, work to recover your balance as quickly as possible after each breath.

In-Water Jump Drills

Do a series of the cross jumps, split jumps and squat jumps described above—roughly five to ten each. "Don't overdo it—this is only a portion of your pool training. You don't want to tire yourself out too soon," says McVan.

The Workout

Laps

When most people think of fitness swimming, this is the exercise that leaps to mind. "There are a lot of people who enjoy—and get a lot of benefit from—swimming laps," says McVan. Swimming laps can be a good way to benchmark your progress. You ought to be able to swim at least 18 laps nonstop, says Laughlin. "That's a bare minimum for fitness swimming," he says, and adds that a lot of people can't do it. If you're one of them, make it a goal to work toward.

Stroke Drills

Spend 20 to 30 minutes doing the stroke and kick drills mentioned above. Ideally, don't do one drill to the point of exhaustion, or all of them one after the other. "The point of a stroke drill is to learn proper technique and, once you've learned it, to hone it," says Laughlin. Stick with two drills per workout—one stroke drill, one kick drill—for 10 to 15 minutes each.

Pool Games

One option for a pool workout is to build your warm-up and cooldown around an aquatic group activity, such as an aquatic aerobics class or a game of water polo. McVan suggests calling your local health club or nearby college. "If they have an indoor pool, odds are they have a year-round program of events and activities. You can usually get involved for a nominal fee," says McVan.

The Cooldown

Tread Water

To cool down after your workout, spend a few minutes easily treading water. Try not to touch the bottom of the pool.

Balance on Your Back

Practice balancing on your back—press your head and shoulder blades into the water, tuck your chin slightly, keep your head still and keep your knees and toes below the surface. Breathe normally.

Slow Strokes

Do a couple of slow laps from one end of the pool to the other. As you swim, count your strokes. You should aim to swim each lap in 20 strokes or less. If you can't do this, spend more time on the stroke drills.

Breathing Exercises

As you swim your cooldown laps, practice rolling and breathing—breathe first on one side, then on the other.

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Chapter List

Swimming