Matthew Pendola

A great exercise for swimmers that is often underutilized is the band overhead exercise. This exercise helps strengthen the lower trap, while also helping to improve posture and centration. Doing this exercise can help swimmers to get more out of their mechanical lifts, such as overhead or horizontal movements.
 
Transcript: "What is one of the most underutilized lift or exercises, in my opinion, for swimmers? So I think-- great question by the way. This is oftentimes more of a cyclic pattern. We'll see, especially, with breathing where we might have this type of offset in our positioning. And then we want to really look at how we can start to set the table better between the lower trap, and then also we, oftentimes, will see that more anterior pelvic tilt and we need to get a little bit more centration. So what we like to do here is just have something like a band overhead on that left side, in this case, and we would get down onto our knees, making sure that we go into more in a posterior pelvic tilt with our hips. Then we like to just get the shoulder blade to pull down and back towards that opposite hip, maybe hold that for about 10 seconds. Just following the fibers here, I can get some good lower trap activation. Let it slide forward again, making sure that we're not bending the elbow and that we're keeping good hip position the entire time, making sure that our sternum is down in that position the entire time. I actually just did this earlier with one of the athletes that I get to serve. And she told me after her swim session, she just felt so fluid and really felt like she was connected. And that's what I'm looking for as a coach. The other thing I would say about this is when she is doing more of her mechanical lifts, since we set the table with something like that first, then we know that she's going to get more out of those strength archetypes that we're working towards if it's overhead or if it's horizontal. Whatever position she's working in, we tend to get more bang for our buck out of those movements. So that's my opinion on this. And I love the question. And let me know if there's anything else that you are curious about there, but thanks for the question."

Shoulder strength exercises for swimmers include: band external rotation, dynamic trunk control, dead weight push above the head, Turkish getups and scapular push-ups.
 
Transcript: "What are best shoulder strength exercises for swimmers? Well, I always follow that philosophy. That strength is only as good as your ability to express it in your skill set. So we look at internal rotation here and that cyclic patterning with swimming. We want to get a little bit more external, locate rotation under that mechanical load. Okay, so I'll show you a couple things. I like to do and some of what not to You. Okay. So here first, you notice, I have a band. Use a band, not a deadweight, not a dumbbell. Because when I'm holding this, that's all into my bicep and my forearm. Okay, when I'm standing up, let's have a cord or a band. So now, it's all into that shoulder and scapular stability that I need. Okay. I can externally, rotate that shoulder. Pause come back to neutral. Now. You notice I'm not flaring That Elbow out. When I clear the elbow out that causes internal rotation that I don't want. Okay, so I might do this for 15 to 20 active reps per side. I also like to follow up with Dynamic trunk control. So here I'm stepping out. And in again, you notice I'm not letting that elbow pop out while I'm doing this. Okay, so, I like to look at components that really will transfer. So if I take this dead weight, now I can push this above my head, making sure that my thumb is back, and that is winning the war. Okay. So, in other words, the head of my elbow and my shoulder. Now, what I'm going to do here is just simply get used to this position. Start to walk in this position, go backwards in this position. I might do this for about 30 seconds per side. Okay. Now I can also look at more Dynamic control with my right shoulder and my opposite hip and I might do a Turkish getup for something like this. So this is above my head. Again. I'm going to step back now. I've got to reach for the ground. This requires a lot of stability and control. I'm going to push through. That opposite hip is tying in. Now, with that shoulder. I'm working down towards the ground one vertebrae at a time and down to the ground. Okay, of course, I can go back up from that position. But while I'm down here and I still have enough time, I'll show you scapula push-ups. Okay, so the scapular push-up, I can pull my thumb's back off the ground. I can reach forward come back and then go into ASCAP push and you notice I keep pushing away with my scalp. So it's protracting pushing the ground away. Okay, I can also do this version. Here with a push-up. And pushing the ground away getting that extra protraction of this Gap. And again, I can also go to a single leg by one Advanced at. Okay. So important part here, pushes get a bad rap in part because they're done with elbows flare out internal rotation and that can do more harm than good. But if you do it the way I'm showing you here. And you can gain a lot more stability through the scalp while you're getting all of the benefits. For that full range that you need and be able to express that strength in your skill set. Okay? In general two parts, pull one part."

It's important to understand the role of inflammation in recovery, and making sure you get enough quality sleep. You should also incorporate walking or low intensity steady state work on your recovery days, and use nasal breathing with the mouth closed. Finally, journaling can help you track your recovery progress.
 
Transcript: "Hi, Amy. This is Matt Padilla, I'm a strength and conditioning coach but also an LMFT, so I appreciate this question, I get it a lot. This is, something first and foremost that I like to cover with athletes is, we understand that inflammation is a part of the process and it can be a good thing. But I'm going to assume here that you're talking about too much inflammation or too much soreness, that sort of thing, and how can I recover faster. Well, first we want to look at what our sleeping hygiene looks like. Are we getting eight hours? Are we getting good quality eight hours? All right. So in the past, I've just experienced maybe a little bit of overreaching in training for a while that can lead to that overtraining effect, less sleep, or the sleeping patterns are just not as good qualitywise. And so that's an indication that overstress it's too chronic and we're doing it too often, too soon, that sort of thing. So looking at those things first and foremost. But from there I would move into what the recovery days actually look like. So if I have a quality day on a Wednesday and a quality on a Saturday, I want to look at Thursday and Friday and what is in that for quality recovery. So walking is so underrated. Movement is medicine. I do believe that we have nasal breathing with the mouth closed, that's rest and digest, something that we call parasympathetic. And that's nice, low intensity steady state work. So I really like that. I even love to fracturize a lot. What that means in the easy running I'm doing, I might run for three minutes, walk for one. And when I'm walking, I get back to the nasal breathing. That really truly helps my easy day stay easy and not push towards potentially that moderate day or moderately hard day. I've personally noticed that my recovery has improved so much more once I started that fractionalized approach in training. And by the way, I got that from Bobby McGee, another running coach on this app. So definitely give that a try. And I would also just tell you that overall when you're looking at how you are responding, a little bit of journaling goes a long ways. You wake up in the morning, do you feel that inflammation is a 4? OK. Now incorporating some of these ideas, you wake up and you see now that it's a 3 or a 3. You see it start to come down. That shows progress and sometimes just reviewing that or taking note of that helps. So I hope this helped you. If you had more specific questions, please let me know, happy to answer."

When creating a gym program for swimming, it is important to focus on compound movements such as the high pull snatch and dynamic trunk control exercises. Repetitions should be kept low (3-5) with two to three reps in reserve. Lots of recovery should be taken between sets (7-12 minutes), and exercises should be done at a lactic pace (6.5 seconds).
 
Transcript: "So you're a swimmer and you feel like the gym work has a negative impact on your swimming due to aches. And fatigue. You're wondering what kind of exercises would work best in the gym. I hear you. This is a big issue when I take over a swimmer's strength program. I look at the dry land programming. They're used to it and it's oftentimes somewhere way up here. We're really. It should be probably cut in half. Right. It's too much minimal effective. Dosing is a much better approach to me. We don't want too much metabolic stress on you. So the reps are probably too high and the maybe overall sets. Okay. So what we want to do is give an example here. I want to take a main compound movement, something that's really going to work. For example, on shoulder stability, hip mobility. Dynamic, trunk control, those kind of things that all check off the boxes that you need as a swimmer. So the high but snatch is a great compound movement and I would do that for three to five repetitions. Now. After you get accustomed to that, you want to maybe get a little bit more, loading, increase that, that stress, that demand little bit. At a time. You might go to 24 reps, but I never Go all the way to failure. I look at having two to three reps in reserve. Which again, means if you got in three reps, you probably could have gotten in five or six if you were really pushed to do it. But you want to leave something in the tank. All right. Now recovery in between swimmers are notorious for. Just being really hard workers. You gotta take a few minutes off between your sets. All right. So that's another big part of it, especially with the compound movements. It's all right. Now finally, I'm going to show you what I would do for just something that's more a lactic as well to Prime up for this high but snatch but also just a good example about how to work in this Zone without going too high in your rest. I would go like say six and a half seconds. Keep it a lactic you're going fast as I can. These are abandoned. Hi, pull. Prime's me up for the high but snatch, which I would use, by the way, with a kettlebell or dumbbell, you do something for six and a half seconds. You take at least a minute off. You want to take seven to twelve Parts rest. So, again, lots of recovery and really just don't over cook yourself. So wish I could say more but video is going to cut me out. If you have more specific questions, let me know, glad to help. All right, thanks for asking the question too, by the way."

When developing a strength and conditioning program for a swimmer between the ages of 13 and 17, it is important to start with general physical preparation exercises such as bridge positions, asymmetrical movements (bird-dog), and push-ups. Once these basics are mastered, you can progress to more power movements such as pause box jumps and kettlebell snatches. It is also important to ensure that proper form is maintained throughout all exercises.
 
Transcript: "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."

When scheduling your weekly lifts, it is best to focus on movements rather than body parts. This way, you can ensure that you are touching all necessary muscles more frequently, which will lead to better results. Additionally, a push-pull session may be beneficial in order to help with the end goal of running faster and gaining relative strength. Finally, one could do some body part exercises at the end of the workout as a reward for their hard work.
 
Transcript: "Should you schedule your weekly lifts by body parts or push-pull movements? Well first we want to know what is the end goal for you? What is your why, right? But stick with me here. I think that everyone's an athlete and really what we're talking about whether we want to get on the podium or you just want to be able to chase your grandkids around the park one day. Really we want to train like athletes. So I tend to move towards the Movements and stead for the training. But why? I also want to look at is if I do a specific body part training, regiment. I miss one day there for some reason, I miss a lot, right? So I'm not going to do it for another week. Whereas when we're training movements were touching on those muscles each time. And so there's more frequency there and I think that compounds to a better effect. Anyways, okay. Now the other thing is as Former competitive athlete myself. If I did a leg day, that might really take away from the quality of my track session because I cooked my legs, right? So let's just talk about specific push-pull session here. That might help you. Right? So let's just say that we want to run faster. Well, that means that we want to be able to put more Force into the ground. So I want to program around that. Okay, so, So typical push-pull day, of course, we're going to warm up. We're going to start sweating, then we want to just look at getting in some say postural pulls. So face, pull a parts or great and I just do maybe 20 reps or so just enough. Not too much to fatigue me, then I'll go into something like Spanish squats. Same idea. Just getting good, lubrication around the joints, getting the ankle Mobility going. Those type of things and then maybe just say, jump rope. Get good stiff Springs going for say 20 seconds, three sets. Not a lot. Then we go into that main movement with a lot of technical coordination and control. So ninja box jump. Now, I'm really gaining that ability to put Force into the ground. All right, and then, I could finish off with say some good relative strength options. All right, so I could do a poll a deadlift. I could do a push, so I can do a push-up, Alright. And then maybe, We get in a little bit of dynamic trunk control. Course, we had a lot of that in all of these movements anyways, but something more specific. So I feel like just doing something where we're getting in a pull-up which is going to actually help with our arm rating for faster running but also really recruit and emphasize more of the lower abdominals to help to hold our position. And we could always finish off with an accessory. Type of movement. The Soleus is often times neglected. So that deeper calf muscle. If we go with a bent knee single leg calf raise, now we're working on that stabilizer. And it also that Soleus will pump blood back up to the heart so that can really help with a lot of things. So that's how I would do a session like that. Now sometimes with athletes I'm working with they say to me. Hey, I love all this but I Want to just bring my arms up. I feel like those are weak points in mind. I just want my arms look better. I give them what I call five minutes of fun. So at the end there's your reward for five minutes. Have at it. You can do bicep curls and tricep extensions. That's fine. I feel good about it. They feel good walking out, you know, so that's something you could do at the very end in just doing some body parts because it's okay to say. Hey, I want these Aesthetics to be better. To write. So those are just some examples. I'm sure there's a lot more questions. Let me know if you have them. Thanks a lot."