To obtain good results in swimming you need consistency and commitment with lifeguard class, but above all gradual training. Especially initially it is essential to respect the muscle adaptation phase before seeking an improvement in results.
In fact, progress is obtained when the process by which the body begins to use oxygen during metabolic processes for energy production improves and, in this, the cardiovascular system and two fundamental qualities come into play: resistance and muscle strength.
Only by enhancing these two components is it possible to reduce energy expenditure during the performance. Like? Let’s find out together.
Exercises to improve endurance and speed in swimming
The technical component in swimming is of fundamental importance to improve performance: it strongly affects conditional skills, which are strength and its main expressions, endurance, and speed.
To obtain improvements it is, therefore, essential to strengthen them first of all with practice but also with exercises and techniques that allow you to perfect the gesture during activity in the water. Here are some tips that will help you increase endurance and speed for better results in your workouts:
- Break Your Training
Into Phases Setting goals is the first step to improving performance. Dividing the training into several phases will allow you to dose your energy and work by “difficulty levels”: start with the first step, which is always that of warming up, in the central phase instead you plan to insert the actual training, while the the last part will be dedicated to recovery and cool-down. Over time you should be able to lengthen the central part with an increasing number of laps and increase the repetitions of the exercises: for example, try to increase the speed, the distance or reduce the recoveries between one repetition and the other.
To better monitor recovery times, you can count on the functions of Garmin smartwatches for swimming: the Swim 2, for example, allows you to keep track of breaks with two types of timers, it also helps you to record the time and distance of the individual exercises to allow you to train smarter and more effectively.
- Introduce targeted strengthening exercises
To increase strength – and therefore develop speed – aim to strengthen the muscles, introducing targeted exercises, to be performed with tools such as the board or the pull buoy. The first will be an excellent workout for the legs, the second will be useful above all to strengthen your arms: used as a support, these tools can also help you in floating between a pause and another to recover energy. - Take care of the buoyancy in the water
Improving the technique and correcting the buoyancy in the water are the basis for improving the fluidity of movement and learning to master the gesture and breathing. One of the best exercises to perfect the technical gesture is braked swimming, a workout to be carried out with a belt fastened to the waist and connected to an elastic band, which will be fixed to the starting blocks. Thanks to the resistance opposed to the elastic in tension, swimming towards the other end of the pool is possible to develop a good general strength. - Control your breathing
Good breathing control is essential for oxygenating the muscles and establishing perfect harmony with the movement of the body in the water. In particular, by improving the strength of the diaphragm muscles, it is also possible to increase the respiratory capacity and obtain the best benefits on endurance. - Improving the thrust
The speed in swimming is not only given by the distance covered but also by the number of strokes: to obtain a greater thrust it is essential to increase the strength that allows you to run as many laps as possible with a single movement. It is therefore essential to be able to increase the explosive strength and the resistant one, that is the ability to keep the muscles in tension for a good amount of time.
For this purpose it is important to take care of the technique: the hand will have to push the water back, while the arm will rotate from the outside slightly towards the inside of the body, with the elbow strictly bent at 90 degrees. At the end, the arm will have to touch the hip before coming out of the water: to complete the stroke correctly it is necessary to push to the end of the rotation and lift the elbow upwards only when the hand has completely come out of the water .