How to train the most important swimming muscle (and why).
As swimmers will tell you, the sport requires the use of practically every muscle in the body to pull yourself through the water with good efficiency. Each of the four different strokes require swimmers to utilize different muscle groups.
Freestyle requires good, strong arm muscles in the form of both the biceps but mainly the triceps.
Backstroke requires a combination of arms–specifically the triceps–and the entire back to pull the water.
Butterfly requires both chest and upper back muscles to move the arms forward in synchrony.
Breaststroke requires consistent, powerful kicks at every point in the stroke.
I’ve covered the importance of a consistent, strong kick and why its important for new swimmers to develop that skill when swimming (read that blog here). But, when it comes to each stroke as a whole, there is one muscle that is used more than the legs, arms, and back and is arguably more important: your core.
When swimming, you rotate your whole body as your arms go through their different stroke cycles. But, at some point, you need to rotate to the other side so your arms can reset. Let’s take a look at freestyle. As your right arm enters the water, your left arm pulls the water down toward your feet. As that arm pulls, it is positioned lower than the rest of your body and the opposite arm is located practically over your body. This causes your whole body to rotate to one side. Without a fast rotation, you can’t swing your arm around to begin a new cycle, causing you to sink. A good swimmer can reverse this process in the blink of an eye. How? They have a strong core.
Your core is the centerpiece of your stroke because it is where each major body part extends from. Without a strong core, that rotation isn’t there which causes you to get caught up and stop moving…leading you to sink. When you are learning competitive swimming, you always want to keep moving forward which is why a strong core is the foundation for any new swimmer’s stroke.
For children, the core is a muscle that can easily be trained and will produce amazing results. They will be able to initiate the rotation faster and stronger, which will cause them to be more efficient and faster! Any CrossFit trainer could give you a core workout, but young swimmers can easily benefit from a short, 5 minute workout, like this set:
3 rounds of 3 exercises:
10 crunches -> 0:30 rest -> 10 leg raises -> 0:30 rest -> 10 shoulder taps (each side) -> 0:30 rest -> repeat
Doing a short core workout like this three times a week will put your swimmer on the pathway of a strong, stable stroke, allowing them to progress quicker and get faster in the water as they learn the foundations of the strokes!