SWIMMING STRENGTH & CONDITIONING
Whether you're aiming for high school championships or Olympic glory, IHP is your swimming training hub. Endless drills and more laps won't make you faster, but IHP Swimming training will. Flexibility exercises won't enhance mobility, but IHP Swimming training will. Olympic weightlifting won't boost swimming speed, but IHP Swimming training will. Intrigued? Dive deeper with us! Click below to read more or get started now.
Swim: Different strokes for different folks:
Swimming demands a diverse set of skills and attributes. Whether it's mastering strokes, improving endurance, or quickening your turns, each swimmer has unique needs. Traditional team training often relies on volume to improve team performance, sometimes neglecting individual areas that need improvement. At IHP, our personalized swimming training addresses the swimmer’s individual strengths and weaknesses. IHP Swim training focuses on increasing specific power-transfer that enhances technique and improves the ‘last-lap grind’ that wins races. At IHP, we believe the best tools for a swimmer will never be found in more training volume. These tools can only be provided if identified and developed individually and trained specifically.
Common training myths in swimming:
In the last 25 years, we have been training swimmers, and we have heard and witnessed some of the most ridiculous training theories, even at the college level. Although things are improving and minds are changing, there is still a ton of training myths, especially at the club and high school levels. I have concentrated on the three most common training myths we come across in the world of swimming.
1. More time in the pool is the fastest and best way to improve swimming. More junk volume in the pool will rarely turn into optimal performance. Most swim practices are similar to Crossfit training; prepackaged workouts that make no sense other than to get ready for prepackaged workouts. Sure, this approach will increase general fitness, but what does that do for the swimmer’s individual goals, strengths, and weaknesses? The answer is VERY LITTLE. Swim performance has MANY components that will never be addressed by ‘more time in the pool.’
2. The long swim endurance transfers to sprint endurance.
One of my pet peeves is the training of swimmers that participate in the sprint events (e.g., 50m - 200m races). The psychological and physiological characteristics needed for elite performance in a sprint have nothing to do with the characteristics developed in thousands of meters of swimming. This goes against basic exercise physiology principles – period. Look at track and field, are the sprinters doing what the milers are doing? NO! After all, if you want a car to improve its power for a drag race, do you prepare it for the Daytona 500?
3. Weight training has to be stopped weeks before a meet.
Although weight training has become a standard practice in the world of swimming, there is still a ton of misinformation. The MOST ridiculous thing we have heard from a coach was that ‘weight training had to be stopped 3 weeks before major meets’! When asked why, the coach said, “the fast-twitch muscles fibers used in weight training needed 3 weeks to recover”! Needless to say – nothing could be more ridiculous. Virtually all athletes will participate in strength and power training right up to the week and sometimes the day of competition.
The main goal at IHP is to achieve better practice and ensure optimal adaptation. This means having the right type and amount of practice, along with time for supplemental work such as strength and conditioning, and ample recovery. No matter how you slice it, practice makes perfect. The more specific, intense, disciplined, and planned the practice is, the better you will perform at anything. This is what we call deliberate practice. Being sharp and intense in practice requires increased physical abilities, which is where IHP training comes in – increasing the ability to execute at the highest level in practice. Then, perfect practice ensures the right motor engram is recorded in the brain and determines the way the athlete races. Mind you, this approach to training has nothing to do with miles of swimming, your squat, or vertical jump.
IHP Swim training naturally improves all athletic attributes and physical characteristics a swimmer needs. However, our approach to exercise execution is very specific to the athlete in front of us. From age to ability, and from event strengths to genetic weaknesses, we improve performance swimmers individually and prepare them for specific practice. You swim as you practice, and you practice like you train at IHP. That’s our mantra. If you like the way this sounds, visit IHP and speak with one of our performance coaches.