Power Pools
By Carl Valle C.S.C.S USATF II
For Elitefts.com

Being involved both as a coach and performance specialist, I see that there needs to be some serious education with both swim coaches and strength consultants. With all of the options available I feel that very demanding heavy weight training can be done to improve power in the pool, provided that the coach and strength specialist communicate often and understand the limits of transfer from weight room to the pool. While some of the greatest minds in sport may be in swimming, many of their ideas on strength training are still in the dark ages. The purpose of this article is not to throw a cookie cutter recipe in for competitive swimmers, but to give practical options for coaches based on their circumstances.

The term "dryland" training is used by swim coaches to describe any training done out of the pool. The ironic part of this generalization is that most coaches limit strength training to body weight exercises on the deck of the pool in order to save them from the demons and pitfalls of the weight room. If these same coaches go to the dark side of training and do use a weight room, it is most likely a conditioning circuit with the same exercises done with machines and cable stations. I am not one of those coaches. As a swim coach, I am responsible for the swimming workouts and the strength training of a high school team during the winter and fall. While respected among equal peers, many less successful coaches find my training program, "great for football players, but not specific for the needs of swimmers!". 

Dryland Dogma 

I am in favor of a solid GPP base as a foundation before weight training since many swimmers are not strong or complete athletes, but the point of a weight room is to improve contractile strength to improve stroke power, not to serve as a cross-training conditioning session. With so much great research and empirical evidence for serious maximal strength work in the last twenty years for swimmers, why are coaches so addicted to surgical tubing and push-ups? Here are my reasons why:

(1)Swimming demands a large aerobic component due to the nature of the events lasting from 19 seconds to 15 minutes, and because the feel of the water (technique component demands) is vital for performance. With limited training, swimming itself is a priority and can not be replaced by any other means. Yet the point of strength training is to enhance training, not replace it.

(2)The resistance of the water is a major element in the limit to speed, so any increases in cross section in a swimmer may impair performance even if the strength improvements are high by the increased surface resistance.

(3)Injuries to the shoulder from swimming are very common, any other training that may risk injury is a fear that many swim coaches have with heavy weight training. Add the fact that many swimmers do little training in the real world (read the effects of gravity), they might not be prepared to handle the stress of lifting from lack of posterior chain development and postural dysfunctions from upper cross syndrome.

(4)Swim coaches are usually handed very large teams and tend to have a poor coach to athlete ratio. This makes organizing a weight training program very difficult due to the wide range of events and body types.

History Lessons

One of my biggest influences in coaching has been Andy Lowe, a former Stanford swimmer 20 years ago who coached me briefly for one year. His perceptions of weight training were very radical to me, since he had us train heavy, and the rest periods were extended. I came from an approach that was just the opposite but I found myself gaining strength rapidly to numbers that were respected for an athlete. My sprinting ability improved so much, if my improvement was on a graph, the slope would be near vertical. Yet the key to his training is that the weight training was in harmony with the pool work. His progression from speed to speed endurance is something that I use today in my own methodology. 

The question I had was this strength training philosophy accepted by international coaches, or just a fluke with high school athletes that tend to respond with almost any program due to the hormonal growth period at that training age? Looking back at history we see a trend that is expanding ever so slowly. Twenty years ago Dr. Tom Mclaughlin from Auburn University argued the use of free weights at the American Swim Coaches Association Conference in a panel discussion on strength training. In efforts to pull swim coaches out of the brainwashing of the Nautilus and Isokinetics "research", Dr. Mclaughlin made some fantastic points on the use of free weights and heavy strength training. But the poor man was outnumbered; the panel included two "machine" Docs to spoil his influence. These companies had sent very smooth and polished presenters to the conference in hopes to sell their expensive equipment to big budget programs. After reading through the transcripts it was obvious that they (the machine researchers) spent too much time in the lab and not in the real world. No only was the Nautilus research biased, it was flawed and pointless. While the Biokinetic Bench is still used (manufactured by Isokinetics) by elite coaches, it is no longer the main course in the diet of strength training. 

In the summer in 1984 in Los Angeles, Ambrose "Rowdy" Gaines won the 100m freestyle at an age that the experts felt was past his prime. At Auburn he was coached by the legendary Richard Quick, (now at Stanford, and the coach for 2000 Olympians Dara Torres and Jenny Thompson) and had set several NCAA records in college. With no coincidence, his strength coach was Dr. Mclaughlin, the same presenter that suggested those devilish free weights at the ASCA conference. His win was of course a stroke of luck and it was during a down time in the sprint events proclaimed by some coaches. A little less the 7 years later UCLA Alum Tom Jager set a world record in the 50 meter freestyle from a staple of heavy weight training, and little credit was given to his out-of-water training. Although near maximal training did gain momentum for the next decade, it was the Sydney Olympics that open they eyes of the swimming world. 

Portland Power 

The domination of the sultry Inge De Bruijn who earned three gold medals in the sprint and butterfly events at the 2000 Olympics was so large; the losers were quick to credit her success from performance enhancing drugs. I looked past the envy and media garbage and looked into her training program for real answers. What were impressive was the steady strength improvements with low velocity lifts. In the period from1997-2000, De Bruijn improved her strength dramatically. In three years her progression was steady and in harmony with her speed in the pool.

Strength Gains from 1997-2000 

Max Bench 155 pounds 190 pounds
Max Lat Pull 115 pounds 155 pounds
Max Chins 9 reps 15 reps
(full extension)

Max Dips 18 reps 44 reps
(90 degree)

Rope Climb 5 lengths 16 lengths
(15 feet)

Body Weight 128 pounds 145 pounds

She was coached by Paul Bergen, one of my biggest influences in my training in both track and swimming. His sense of humor and brilliant training ideas in the ASCA journal books are my favorite reading material when I have spare time. 

During the same year thousands of miles away, rival Therese Alshammar was training with Dirk Lange. She was using a ten rep scheme previously with another coach but switched to a 2-3 rep approach while adding running sprints to increase her general power after upgrading to Lange. With a 21/2 hour weight training program a few times a week, it was no mystery how she won two silver medals behind De Bruijn. Her training in the pool was similar as well:

He believes in hard training, then regeneration. That's the secret that most people don't get. Everyone trains as if they're distance swimmers. But with Dirk, it's build up and rest. Build up and rest. Make sure you don't get too tired but train full out. Why do you train slow. You don't swim slowly."

Therese Alshammar
Sports Illustrated June, 2000

Last but not least (The 50m Bronze Medalist) we have Dara Torres benching over 200 pounds at an age that was considered ancient. For a sport that most medals are won with college age athletes, a woman over 30 winning gold medals sounded like a Disney Channel feel good movie but not a realistic story until it happened. Throws Coach Robert Weir works with (Dara's coach) Richard Quick at Stanford to develop simple maximal strength with fantastic success. I would recommend all swim coaches to walk over to the track and treat the field coach to lunch. 


The Lab Rat

One of the high school swimmers I work with lives on the same street I do. With a supportive family and a good work ethic, we are preparing this young man for great things in the near future. As a freshman he helped to set a school record in the 4 x 100yard freestyle relay. That accomplishment was no easy task, since the same school holds the state records in the other two relays and has won an impressive ten state titles in the last 30 years with the same coach. Since I have control over all aspects of his preseason pool training and summer weight training, we are not going to shy away from the power lifts. After a month of demanding GPP, we will head into the weight room to focus on three primary lifts. I feel that pull-ups, deadlifts, and bench press work should be incorporated in sprint swimmers.

The rationale behind the deadlift over the squat is the lack of posterior chain strength from quad dominant freestyle kicking. Although I address it in the pool with kicking on the back with fins, I am of the thinking that the low back strength with deadlifts can help with postural needs and the CNS demands are great feeders to the nervous system. 

Doing pull-ups this day in age is not an easy activity. The culture of today has destroyed the foundation of our youth by removing equipment like pull-up bars, peg boards, climbing ropes.

The Bench Press will use a narrow grip to decrease the strain of the rotator cuff, therefore reducing the chance of injuries. His rep range will never be higher then 6, since the volume will come from the push-up exercises I use for scapulae stabilization during tempo days.. I have had my swimmers bench heavy for 6 years and never had a shoulder problem because the swimmers are monitored closely and we place our lifting on speed days in the pool when they are fresh. Doing them when in heavy fatigue is the danger, not the movement.

Those three movements are the foundation to my program. While we have other movements like dips and squats, those three are my foundation to our strength program. I don't change the exercises, just the placement, and load. This way I can tell if they are improving strength, since the clock on the stop watch is affected by so many variables in training I must see what was working by isolating the elements in training. I created variety by adding more traditional exercises such as tubing and medicine balls, but made sure that those did not interfere with the strength building. My logic is that efforts to replicate the motion of the stroke are limited since using similar patterns and loads to mimic swimming are ineffective as a base. Here is my rationale.

(1) Goal setting for tubing, Vasa Trainer work, and Biokinetic Bench training lacks a direction and an end goal. At the highest settings the only way to get better is do more reps or by attempting to do the movement faster. Soon such strength training becomes conditioning at high levels and should be left for pool work. Also, the loads are so light because they use a swimming specific movement that have no clear message to the organism. The brain asks, "What is the goal of the session? Power, technique, conditioning?"

(2) With a price tag of thousands for just one or two pieces, it makes it a tough purchase since it is only specific to one team, while a power rack can serve everyone.

(3) The motion however similar does not teach any rotational component and is useless for backstrokers. I still use it from time to time because it does have some great benefits like elbow height.

Adding power lifts to a program with a swim coach that is from the old school or stubborn can be difficult. Here are some reasons I feel that are great reasons that favor the use of the deadlift and heavy bench press to a strength training program for swim teams.

* The deadlift develops the posterior chain and helps balancing the quad dominant action of kicking, therefore improving backside mechanics on the dolphin kick or freestyle kicking.

* The deadlift helps with starting technique and distance from the involvement of the glutes and hamstrings. Although turns are mechanically quad dominant from the leg angles, the added hip extension will improve push offs.

* Postural improvements from the deadlift in the spine can help create a better "vessel" by reducing lordosis and kyphosis by developing the low back, an area usually ignored during abdominal biased core workouts. Having a straighter (normal) spine, can help with streamlines off the wall and during the race itself.

* The low volume and high intensity of the lifts can improve strength while maintaining the same weight for swimmers that are quick to add too much mass from weight training. With the high mileage of swimming from most programs, hypertrophy should not be a problem.

* The movements are multi-joint, so they are in fact more time effective then a huge circuit is that relies on triceps pull downs, leg extensions, and other single joint movements. Because of the longer rest periods, a circuit can still be used to organize teams by making the rest periods the training time of other athletes.

* The movements are great indicators of fatigue from the pool, so they can serve as tests for the pool training, not just the strength training itself.

* Due to the nature of the narrow grip used, it is safe on the shoulder and the range of motion can be decreased if desired.

In summary, I feel that the heavy strength training can and should be used for events 200m/y and shorter for swimming. I have made some average swimmers above average just from being "aggressive" in my weight training.


Other articles on performance and regeneration can be read at www.regenerationlab.com, and he can be contacted via email at carl@regenerationlab.com.