April 29, 2020

By Ali Sensintaffar, HRCA Assistant Aquatic Program Coordinator

Lower Body Exercises for Swimmers
We’ve touched on core strength, the upper body, and now it’s time to hit the lower body. It is important for swimmers to have strength in their lower bodies because that’s where a lot of swimmers’ power comes from. The blast from pushing off the blocks off a start, or a powerful push off of a flip turn, or the powerful, efficient kicks.

My Favorite Leg and Butt Exercises
Bridge
The bridge is a good exercise because it is low impact and really works on your muscles in the lower body. With this exercise, you can hold it, or pump your hips to make it a little more challenging. When doing this exercise, make sure that you don’t push your hips too far up and over-extand your back and keep your knees over your ankles.

Lunge
The lunge is a classic exercise that most people are familiar with. When doing lunges, start in a standing position and then step back and drop your knee so that it is almost touching the ground. The knee in the front should be over the ankle. Make sure to repeat on both sides. You can also do lunges by stepping forward and “walking” or by stepping out to the side which works a different group of muscles. A basic lunge is pictured below.

Jump Squats
Squats are also another classic exercise. These have a slight twist on them that is specifically geared towards swimmers though. Most often, in jump squats, when you jump, you throw your arms up in superman arms. In the jump squats we will be doing, you will jump into a tight streamline. This mimics the position you should be in after you push off the wall after a flip turn so will help you have more powerful and efficient turns. Start off by pretending to sit down in a chair, keeping your knees over your ankles. Get as low as you can so your knees are at roughly 90-degree angles. Then, push off the ground with as much force as you can and throw your arms above your head in a tight streamline.


Burpees
This is a great exercise because it incorporates everything. Burpees are tough, doing them quickly enough can be a cardio workout, while you’re working your lower body as you jump, your core while you plank, your upper body as you do a push-up. This really is an all around workout.

Start off standing, then lean down and place your hands on the ground in front of you. Jump your legs back behind you so that you are in the plank position. Lower yourself into a pushup and then return to a plank. Jump your legs back up to your hands and then jump up into a tight streamline.

To make this easier, rather than jumping your legs to and from your hands, just step them back. To make it more challenging, add a squat before starting.

Here’s a weekly workout that I created with the above exercises and the exercises I discussed the last several weeks as well. Try my Full Body Weekly Workout and let me know what you think!