Whether you swim for fun, swim to get some exercise or compete in swim meets, what you do with your body outside the pool will have a big impact on how well you perform in the water. It's important to maintain a healthy diet and do some stretching to prevent injury in the water. Working out in the gym will build muscle strength that can translate to more laps or faster swim times.
Swimming Diet
Nutritionist Jeannie Gazzaniga-Moloo says carbohydrates are the body's main fuel source and are key to a good diet for swimmers. The night before and the morning of a swim practice or meet, load up on healthy carbohydrates such as whole grain cereal, bread, pasta, rice, vegetables and beans. These foods provide complex carbohydrates that take a while to break down in your system and provide lots of energy. Avoid simple sugars that move more quickly into the bloodstream, such as cookies, candy, cakes and sweetened beverages. Instead, to satisfy a sweet tooth, treat swimmers to fruit for dessert or as a topping for cereal, pancakes or whole grain waffles. And even though you're in the water, be sure to drink plenty of water to stay well hydrated for swimming.
Stretching Exercises
The Stretching Institute lists three stretching exercises that give swimmers the most benefit in terms of improving their swimming and helping to eliminate injuries. For the reaching-up shoulder stretch, put one hand behind your back and reach up between your shoulder blades. To work on your shoulder, do an arm-up rotator stretch. To do this, hold one arm straight out to the side and then bend at the elbow to make a 90-degree angle. Now, put a broomstick in the hand that's pointing up and let the broomstick hang behind your arm. Use your other hand to pull the bottom of the broomstick forward, rotating the shoulder.
Stretch out your calves with a single-heel drop. While standing on a raised object or step, move the ball of one foot to the edge and let your heel drop toward the ground. Keep your leg straight. Alternate legs.
Strength-Building Exercises
Olympic gold medal swimmer Jason Lezak says strength-building exercises in the gym can help swimmers in the water. On BodyBuilding.com, he recommends the incline chest press for the chest, lat pull-downs and standing pull-downs for the back, a standing triceps exercise and seated independent free weight curls for the biceps. The shoulders already get a good workout in the pool, but if you want to do a little more, Lezak says to go easy with some standing shoulder extensions. For the lower body, Lezak recommends seated quad extensions and use of a hamstring machine and a seated independent calf machine. He suggests using a seated leg press rather than using a laying down machine. Try to mimic the push you would use off the wall in the pool. Don't go beyond a 90-degree angle.
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