Should a swimming strength program be based around Olympic lifts (clean, snatch) or power lifts (bench, squat, deadlift)? Or is a mix of both best?

Question

Scott Dickinson · Answer

Yeah, great question. Should a swimming strength program be based around Olympic lifts or power lifts, or as a mix of both best look for me. I think every strength and conditioning coach should have a massive set of tools in their toolbox that they can go to for any specific purpose. I know athletes that are not able to do any of those lifts that you list there and yet are still extremely Only successful Olympic athletes. The reason they're successful is because we've been able to find alternative solutions to address the physical qualities that we're trying to work on. So I certainly wouldn't be getting locked in to anyone training Paradigm or philosophy. I think I think you need to be able to address. What the demands of the sport are and then make sure you're always referring back to the individual athlete needs and any limitations that they might have.

Matthew Pendola · Answer

Should have swimming strength program be based around Olympic lifts, like the clean and snatch or your big three strength lifts, like your squat, your bench, press your deadlift or is a mixture of both. So I do think it's a mixture of both. And of course, we always have to consider the experience of the athlete. So if we don't have a lot of experience with Olympic lifts, I mean, it's their Olympic list. For a reason. It takes a lot of expertise to apply these lifts. Properly. That's why it's an Olympic sport. But that doesn't mean that we should shy away from them. But looking at what we can do to execute these lifts properly in general and more specifically, probably the swimmers. If you use a kettlebell, if you use a dumbbell for something like a snatch, think that has a much easier learning curve and better execution land. Mine is another variation. I really like to use a lot with swimmers now that Maine Technical coordination that main lift that you're doing should be when you're fresh. So U Prime up, you do movements to get you ready for that lift. And then you execute that lift when you are fresh ready to go and your Springs are able to really get the most out of the movement. Now from there. You can go into some of that strength looking at maybe getting in a good deadlift. For example, that will really crossover for your swimming. Aiming. I like in general to work on Single Leg dead lifts. And if you're talking about movements that are more specific though, the ability to be able to express that strength for your skill, set something like the bench. Press will you're pinning, your shoulders back on the bench, not my favorite. Now, I gave some variations in a video, another question where it was about whether or not we should use barbell or dumbbells for the bench, press, a check that one out where I have a pretty unique. Relation to the press for a swimmer that would work. Well, neutral grip. Dips. I think are a great option things like that, little bit better crossover for you. So I think tying all this in it is a mix of both, but it's about the execution, the progression, and in and the Order of the things you're doing. So that's my perspective on it. And I hope that helps. If you have more specific questions about this, let me know. For example, if You're talking about Open Water Swimming versus, you know, doing in the pool, a butterfly, you know, these things change the variables a little bit on the specificity of movements, but in general, this is what I would do. I hope that helps and let me know if I can answer any more questions.

Paul Talty · Answer

When choosing exercises for any sort of a strength program, it's important to recognize is that all exercises are simply tools in the toolbox. So whether it's Olympic lifts or the power lifts, they all serve a different purpose. What you have to try and figure out is what's the best to to complete the job that you're trying to do. So for the likes of your cleans, your snatches, they can be more and variations. Of digging more involved. In development things like pink Power already Force development type characteristics. Whereas the like savior powerless bench squat deadlift. Would more often than not be used to develop things like absolute strength or Mac strength, but the reality is that the way in which you load any of those exercises will dictate what the outcome would be. And quite often, you can serve quite a broad spectrum using in all of the exercises. So you have to take into consideration, other factors such as the experience of the athlete, what they're comfortable doing, what you're comfortable as a coach teaching that I see to do and you make a decision from there more often than not in a program that I write. I try to use a mix of all of the above was ultimately bench. Squat and pull-ups will be amongst the really key strength. Exercises are agrees will do and we will as much as possible try to use cleans and variations of cleans along with weighted jumping tasks to drive power development. What that else?

Margaret Hoelzer · Answer

Should assuming strength program be based around Olympic lifts, or power lifts, or a mixture of both. So it's going to depend on the age of the kid. I am not a huge advocate of high schoolers lifting wage just because the risk of injury is really, really high. Swim. Coaches are not strength, coaches pure and simple and then nor do they need to be right there. Are people out there that specialize in this for a reason. And so I think sometimes some coaches are spreading themselves a little bit thin and like I said, the risk of injury goes up significantly if they're not being supervised properly and you know they're still growing and all of that. So I personally think that you should wait to do heavy lifting at least until you're a little bit older and then again you want to make sure that you're doing this with somebody that knows what they're doing. That's teaching you the proper technique. I mean the majority of swimmers get injured. Not in the swimming pool. A lot of times it's happening during strength and conditioning or it's happening you know, just anywhere outside of the pool. We're not exactly the most coordinated people on land on sometimes so yeah. So we gotta be really careful. But yeah, I would say in terms of what we're doing and what you're lifting, it's going to be a combination I did. I would say when I was in college and lifting our swimming professionally we did a lot of lifts that were focused on our core are so clean snack. Ouch squats deadlifts. We squatted with the bar as opposed to doing a leg press more but yeah it was mostly everything that was coming from your core full body movements and then sometimes there were more specialized things like bench or other movements to work on specific body parts. But yeah, I really like the majority of the lifts that were full body and translated into swimming and using your core.

Erin Carson · Answer

Hey, Jack, a swimming strength program. Really doesn't need to be lift based around Olympic lifting or powerless for that matter. I think over time the development of the athlete is going to be really specific to their intended outcomes and goals and needs and where their deficits are. So yes, Olympic lifting is really useful for some athletes. Powerlifting is definitely in. It should be included for some athletes, but it doesn't need to be for And that's difficult in a team setting. A lot of times because you want your team to act like a team, but we need to take care of the health of the athlete first. Make sure that they have enough energy to perform the tasks being asked of them and practice and then add and build a strength program around that really hopefully, the most personal approach is the best approach.

John Sinclair · Answer

It's a great question. Should a swimming strength programme based around Olympic lifts or power lifts are is a mix of both of them best. Well, I'm always a fan of doing a bit of both, but if you actually look at Olympic weightlifting, both squatting and deadlifting are part of Olympic weightlifting now should it be always be put into your training program and be based on it? Probably not. We're looking to try to improve your athletic development. So as a means of cross-training for swimming, I think it's fantastic and I think we should Include it, we don't have to do it in the traditional sense. We can break those patterns into different component parts, which The Squat and the deadlift is a component part, to both the clean and the snatch. But we also want to think about how do I do these movements in different directions at different speeds with different loads. So for example, we could do an Olympic lifts but we might do a rotation Olympic lifts with a device different than an actual barbell. So if I'm taking a device like this, this is free weight and this is mass but it's less mass than a barbell. Then we can explore snatch movements in a different plane of motion under load. So we might be able to do some rotational poles or rotational rotational High pole, with a different device. Can we can do them with the dumbbell as well. So, what I'm suggesting in the strength and conditioning world is that we don't limit our strength and conditioning programs, only to Acting. Okay, we need to not only lift in the vertical Direction, but we also need to do rotational patterns as well. We need to be able to do side, flexion patterns. So, the ability to do a lift in the pattern of a rainbow becomes very effective as well. So I want you to think a little bit about how we can adjust our swimming programs to influence different areas of the body that we're not getting in the water and then make them more resilient as a result of it.

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"Should a swimming strength program be based around Olympic lifts (clean, snatch) or power lifts (bench, squat, deadlift)? Or is a mix of both best?"