A swimming pool is a good place for low-impact strength training. You work against the water's resistance to work out all the major muscle groups in your body. Because water insulates your joints from the effects of gravity, you have a relatively low risk of injury when exercising in a pool.
Interval Training
Interval training gets you focused on increasing power and strength rather than just going back and forth in the pool. Interval training involves breaking up your swimming workout into timed segments. Use the pace clock at a pool or a waterproof watch to time yourself and set a specific pace. Add fast intense sprints and longer fast sets into your everyday lap swim. Swimming faster helps build your power because you pull faster, engage your core abdominal muscles to rotate quicker and increase leg and hip power by kicking harder, according to the U.S. Masters Swimming website.
Sculling Drills
Lap swimmers, synchronized swimmers and water aerobics participants all use sculling to keep afloat and move. To strength train, make a constant circular pattern with your palms facing down on the surface of the water. Make your way down the pool's length by the power of your sculling movements only. Keep your head above the surface of the water, or raise it above when you want to take a breath. Reverse sculling requires you to sit up in the water, as if sitting on a sofa, and to move forward in the water using your forearms and palms only. Less buoyant or weaker swimmers benefit from using a flotation belt or pull buoy for this training. You should feel the muscles in your forearms working out, as you increase your strength and your feel for the water.
Leg Exercises
Vertical kicking is a simple but effective way to build leg strength. Position yourself vertically in deep water, and hold your arms out sideways from your body, hands up, in a "surrender" position. Keep yourself afloat by flutter kicking. Just one minute of vertical kicking might tire you out when you first start vertical kicking exercises. When you build up leg strength, try one minute of vertical kicking between swimming laps.
Shallow-water leg exercises include squats with jumps and leg lifts. Intense eggbeater "blocking" moves, borrowed from water polo, require you to tread water using a circular "eggbeater" kick and then thrust yourself skyward, using only the strength from your legs.
Upper-Body Exercises
Swim paddles turn an ordinary swim session into a strength-building routine. Large paddles increase the effort you make with each stroke, but smaller paddles also build some strength, with less risk of injury to your shoulder. Paddles are typically used while "pulling," or swimming using your upper body only. Use a flotation device for your legs if you have difficulty keeping your legs afloat during pulling exercises.
Traditional Upper-Body
Traditional strength exercises for the upper body also work well in a pool. Perform pull-ups in either a shallow or a deep pool, while you position yourself facing the wall of the pool, arms bent at the elbow, your hands flat on the deck. Hoist yourself up from the water using your upper body until your waist is at the level of the deck's edge. Wait a moment, and then lower yourself back down slowly. Repeat six to eight times, or as many as you are able.
When performing dips, you face outward toward the pool while sitting on the edge of the deck, palms gripping the rim. Lower yourself into the water and raise yourself back up again. Repeat this move until you tire.
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