Plyometrics and Swimming

We’ve covered plyometrics for swimmers several times on Swimming Science, but it’s a topic worth revisiting as many teams are in the early season, and ready to install new programming if they haven’t already done so.  With images of Ryan Lochte’s epic training routines shown across the globe during the Olympics, it’s natural that more want to copy the world’s best (but keep in mind Lochte is a former varsity basketball player with some natural “hops”…)

 

A common belief is that plyometrics aid starts and turns in swimming.  Multiple studies have shown that plyometrics may improve block starts (Bishop 2009, Potdevin 2011).  However, plyometrics aren’t the only way to improve starts and may adversely affect in-pool training, so we must keep all results in context.  It makes logical sense that plyometrics would improve turns, but so far the evidence on both sides has been limited.  Cossor 1999 found no effect of plyos compared to in-water training, but that study was with youth swimmers training 3x per week.  

 

For the complete post, please visit HERE at Swimming Science.