So the first week back in the water didn’t go very well. I was only able to get in the water about three times this past week. The first was Monday, February 18th, during the night lap swim time. The second was Tuesday, February 19th, during the first club swim practice of the semester. And the last was Friday, February 22nd, during the morning lap swim time. Why was there no lap swim times or club swim practice on Wednesday and Thursday? Because the high school states swim meet was scheduled to happen on those days. Due to the snow, the high school states meet was pushed back to Thursday and Friday of the week, but the snow also, unfortunately, closed the pool on Wednesday. I was still able to get some laps in Friday morning solely because the meet was supposed to take place at night.
The lack of ability to swim this week was really frustrating because I actually had a club swim meet yesterday, Saturday, February 23rd. I did not expect myself to do well because of the lack of practice, but to my surprise, I made a nationals cut in the 50 yard breaststroke. I actually made it by several seconds.
But here is why I think I actually did better than I thought:
I had gone to the gym and worked out so that my muscles didn’t get weak and out of shape for the meet.
But there’s something I would really like to say about working out in the gym for swimmers. When someone works out at the gym, they’re always doing workouts that require them to push. For example, the bench press, leg press, or push ups. Swimmers need to focus on the pulling motion. During practice, a coach often writes “pull set” on the sheet. Why? Because you’re pulling through water to move. So the more pulling workouts you do, the more in shape your arms become for swimming.
That is why I highly recommend that you do a pulling workout that has movements extremely similar to the Vasa Trainer Pro. You do not need to purchase one, just copy the movement with a bungee cord like the person is doing on the second image. When you get a bungee cord, just tie the opposite ends of the handles to an object and pull in a similar fashion to the way you would do a stroke in the water. The further back you stand, the more resistance you should feel.
For your legs, I highly recommend some squat jumps. I have often found this exercise great for mimicking both the motion of pushing off the walls in the pool and jumping off the blocks. The higher you jump, the better, because it means that you can push off the walls harder and jump further out.
I hope that you find these workouts helpful for getting back into swimming shape and that you give some thought to the whole idea of pushing vs pulling workouts in the gym.
Getting Back in the Pool 