Any pointers for framing a proper strength and power program for swimmers? What are the important exercises for ages 13-17? A weekly micro plan? Thanks!

Question

Erin Carson · Answer

Hey, Arvin, Heron here. I'm a strength coach and I think for young athletes 13 to 17. Specifically, we want to work backwards from what we're actually trying to accomplish. Are we trying to make them better swimmers? Or we may be trying to increase their capacity to swim more with less risk of injury. So from my perspective, if I never saw a young swimmer, kind of a, an adolescent swimmer, do another pushup. I would be stoked because I think we weigh over push. Shhhh, those athletes. I would like to see a program based on polling based on scapular, stability and control, as well as core strength and core control. So different, kinds of exercises that are going to put. Right arm left leg connection, left arm, right leg connection cross connections. I also want to see a nice focus on the fundamentals of strength training because if swimming and sport is something that they want to continue. We want them to understand squat patterns lunge patterns. Pulling patterns a little bit more even than pushing patterns. And if there is pushing, I would rather see unilateral pushing. So if we are doing a bench press, we're going to do a single arm, bench, press. If we are going to do a high plank position to encourage good stability, through the, through the shoulder girdle, and through the scapular system. Then we really want to see. Maybe single arm. Hi planks. So our ability to rotate is also really important. So we want to be careful. Not. To have too much Court stability. We need to be able to move in nice, synchronistic patterns. So hopefully that's not too much. But the most important thing is don't over push these athletes internal rotation and over development on the front side of the body is something that we really want to avoid with all athletes, but specifically in young ones because it's a pattern that can only haunt them.

Matthew Pendola · Answer

What are some pointers for framing, a proper strength, and conditioning program for a swimmer between the age of 13 and 17? So I've worked with a lot of Youth swimmers over the years and really just youth in general. We know that they don't have much of a gym age yet. And so they might not have a lot of experience with dry land and we want to make sure that they establish a proper base of proper strength base, and that's done with just general physical preparation. Ian movements, and that phase can last a long time because really, we just have to master the basics first. Okay. We can't fire a cannon out of a canoe, right? That's something that I always try to keep in mind for the long term gains. We want with power. We have to start with strength because strength, precedes power. So we look at those Basics. Let's get really good in our Bridge positions. Let's get strong in those basic. Use the then. Let's start to say get more asymmetrical. It's take one arm away and being a 3-point Bridge. Let's take do something like a bird, dog, and get into a two-point Bridge with one arm and one leg. Lift it off the ground, you know, things like that are super important just to start with. And we see with swimmers a lot that they actually tend to spill their spine, flare their ribs here quite a bit, especially when we're talking about. Out overhead reaching. They haven't established that Dynamic trunk control yet. So really watching for those things because it's not about the exercise is to me as much as how we're doing the exercises. Okay, so we want to get really good from there with things just like push-ups. And I'm going to just say that the serratus anterior in particular that muscle that's responsible for Upward rotation. Jason of the scapula but also protraction of the scapula, that's I think really neglected a lot of time. So in other words, if we're doing a push-up and we're and we're here, we haven't finished. We should keep pushing the ground away and get that serratus really involved. Okay, when we do our pull up, we really want to make sure that we're squeezing our armpits. We're squeezing on our pinky. We're really recruiting those lats. Okay. So if we Do straight arm, pull downs, and we get those lats recruited and stronger. And we start to work on more awareness. So, we know how to create a really important brace. Okay? For performance, with our posture, those fundamentals again are so important. Now from there. I would say, of course, we want to work on our squats in our dead list. I often times, we'll use a landmine with things like this because landmine reduces the learning curve. Makes it much easier. Here to learn these movements in the patterns. I feel. Now. The other thing I would say is once we've established that we can get into some basic power movements and really it's just looking at is the athlete ready to progress with this stuff, but pause jumps are great to do because it mimics the the power they will need to produce in the water water, being a thousand times denser than air and be able to still push off of the wall, right? So a pause box. Jump is fantastic to do a high but snatch is fantastic yields really good results. I feel like that explosiveness, but I'll tend to do that again, would like a kettlebell instead of using a heavy bar in the beginning. All right. So these are just some ideas that I'm going to run out of time. There's just a lot of things that we could talk about. But this is the type of progression. I would follow and if you have more questions, Russians. Let me know. I do have programs for this stuff, but I am trying to help as much as I can just with this answer. All right. Thanks so much.

Paul Talty · Answer

When signal strength and power program for thirteen seventeen year olds. The first thing to do is not to stress too much about the specifics of the sport. There are partaking in and to think of them as more General athletes and aim to develop general movement of motor competencies in the process, what that means is making sure that they're they're learning to move really well and to use their body. In space really well, so that's focusing on, you know, your fundamental movement patterns are on, you're squatting, you're pressing your pulling bracing, lunging hinging, all those types of things. And if that scorched really well, and then an awful lot of the other key pieces that you need to develop for Summers. They're pretty easy to layer on top of it. So when they're, when they're learning to price of the pole, you're looking for them to be moving. Its capital is moving. The shoulder blades really well in a controlled fashion. I'm not showing too much that there. It's a protraction retract and and there to hold themselves overhead really? Well, there's quite near looking for triple flexion of the hip knee and Ankle while being able to maintain strong posture through the upper body and lunging. You what you know, you're looking for them to be able to move while on a wooden leg. Bracing, you're wanting to develop good, General trunk function. And you know, just generally jumping Landing casks that you just really learning how to jump and how to land if you can. Cover off, all those places then you're you're doing a really excellent job for pratik to that age.

Lee Sommers · Answer

Arvind, I really liked a word that you chose here and that was framing a proper strength and power program for swimmers ages 13 to 17. I think when we talk about framing, we talk about how we are relaying the information and the importance to the athletes, a lot of swimmers aren't going to be comfortable in the weight room. And so I think the way that we frame an exercise program and the way we talk about it is going to be really important a In getting them comfortable and getting their buy-in and be getting them to understand how it's going to relate back to their sport. I heard a bunch of answers prior to mind, I liked a lot of the stuff that was said. Number one, I think our job is strength coaches and our job. As far as designing the program is going to be keeping them, keeping them able to do their sport. All right, so I think a lot of times swimmers come to us and if they don't have good movement quality, they wind up getting injured, a lot of swimmers don't have any other experience. With any other sports. So they're not the most Adept at moving outside of the water and something that I kind of start talking about it at very early ages. Exposing swimmers even if they know they're going to be swimmers to other sports other forms of athleticism, so they develop some of those attributes that will allow them to be a better athlete in the water. All that being said, I think that getting them first moving. Well, understanding fundamental movement patterns making sure that they know how A hinge. They know how to swap, possibly know how to Lunge your split squat, unloaded getting them to do upper body, pulling, both vertically and horizontally and teaching them how to press. And by press typically, that's gonna be more horizontal pressing than vertical pressing. Although at certain points, once they are stable and we do feel that we've got an athlete that can handle it. I'm okay with some overhead pressing as well. Both 4560 all the way through as far as degrees of motion. I think the more they understand how this can benefit them as far as keeping them in their sport, keeping them healthy and hopefully swimming faster. The better, the framework is for their actual strength and conditioning program and their relationship or their their feelings about weight room and strength, and conditioning work.

Tim Crowley · Answer

Any pointers for framing a proper strength and power program for swimmers. What are the important exercises for ages 13-17 in a weekly micro plan? So we'll start with this is it's important that they're in the weight room with all the swimming they're doing. They often get overuse injuries at this age so really addressing the upper shoulder. The external rotation course they're not getting low back injuries. I think is essential twice a week for 30 to 40 minutes, depending on the availability of Equipment in a number of athletes plays a big part, but you want to make sure it's focused around quality work on a consistent basis because these kids are often, you know, they got school all day. They might be swimming to a days several days a week, so probably going to be doing between eight and nine swim sessions per week. We want to make sure that getting consistent strength works or twice a week, 30 or 35 minutes should be important. Type of exercise, should focus on is shoulder, external rotation, upper body pulling. Good squat, type the exercises, maybe not certainly back squats, but front squat strap, bars, include a vertical jump. It doesn't have to be a lot, but a couple of jumps per session, maximal, effort, done, consistently and also throwing type exercise is medicine ball. Exercises are great using throwing off a wall. I don't recommend throwing between partners because eventually they're going to break a finger and it's going to keep them out of the pool. So, throwing into the ground, like overhead, slams, or side rotation, throws the ideas. Make sure we're getting a power component of upper body throws and lower body jumps other than that. Keep our programs squatting pressing, pulling and then core stuff, but the core stuff, ideally should be vertical course. Tough standing cable lifts cable chops. Anti-rotation exercises are excellent. And then just kind of progressed the program, in terms of difficulty, try to avoid adding lots of volume, but try to continue working on making the exercise a little bit more complex. And keeping the intensity High.

Jess Racz · Answer

I think the most important thing based off of the age that you're saying thirteen to Seventeen is I don't think it matters. What sport I wouldn't try to make it super sport specific until they're a little bit older probably after 17 or even into their 20s because most of that age just needs a general base. So think of a pyramid. So basically if I have a pyramid here and at the top is like the most that I can get out of my genetic ability and And the most athleticism I can get or whatever their goal is to be an ex swimmer. And so at the I need a very wide and big base. So the bigger the base, The Wider, the base, the higher, my pyramid. And so I think at that age, people just need to build general fitness, like, can they handle their body weight? Can we move through a full range of motion? Can we do? We have body awareness, and it's called, proprioception. Rio ception ability just control within space. Can I do like the basic moves? Am I confident on a single leg? Do I have proper core strength? And so I think honestly like three to four times a week of that is going to be the best and then with the power you want to make sure again that you're building that base. So a lot of people go straight into like the Olympic list or they go straight into depth jumps or like really high box jumps and these athletes don't one have Neuromuscular control or that ability, but they don't have also proper landing and they don't have the base for their joints, and their muscles and their tendons, to handle that. So I recommend building what's called an extensive plyometric base. So like, like, jump roping is going to be great to start to build that base. You can even go without the jump roping and do some hops on the move. You can do ladder drills. You can do like skips and Bounds for long duration. In you can even do if you look up the dot drill like dog, drill exercises are really good to start to build that base and build that, that resiliency and durability to be able to then handle the what are called intensive, Plyometrics those box jumps on the Olympic lifts, things like that. So it's it's making things as simple as possible and the least complicated for that age. So a, for example, the Olympic lifts are super technical. It's going to take a while for them to get the The form down. So what can I do to substitute that? But still get full out hip extension. And so you can just do vertical jumps. You can do a med Ball Toss, taking a bed ball and throwing it up as high as you can and jumping in the air. That's going to start to build that power. There's not a lot of teaching to it and they're going to be able to get that full hip extension.

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"Any pointers for framing a proper strength and power program for swimmers? What are the important exercises for ages 13-17? A weekly micro plan? Thanks! "