Swim Like an Olympian with These Pool Workout Tips for Beginners

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How many times have you walked past your gym’s pool and almost worked up the nerve to step outside of your typical cardio routine?

To give up the comforts of the horrible gym soundtrack or being able to shuffle through your own playlist and text messages while breaking a sweat for the seclusion of the water is something that deters a few gymgoers. What they’re missing out on is a calorie-burning, no impact, full-body workout. And doesn’t working out in the water sound awfully comforting in this summer heat?

Two-time Olympic swimmer Scott Dickens is an obvious advocate of the benefits of swimming and helping swimmers train effectively. He’s now the director of strategic partnerships at FORM, the world’s first smart swim goggles that provide real-time performance metrics while you swim.

Dickens was a power sprinter, competing mostly in the breaststroke events. That required him to generate a lot of power while maintaining consistent speed. His workouts were on the explosive side, consisting of box jumps with weights or a medicine ball, squats, bench press, and shoulder press. Assuming you don’t have your sights set on the Paris Games in 2024 and are looking into adding swimming to your everyday fitness routine, Dickens offered his advice on getting started and ways you can become a better swimmer to make sure you’re getting a quality pool workout.

Getting Started

The first piece of advice it to start small. If you like being in the water, you’ll immediately see the value and benefits of swimming because it’s both low impact and a full-body workout. You’re working your arms, core, legs, and your mind because it’s a mental release from everyday life of technology. You’re in water and you’re surrounded by water. It’s kind of soothing, even when you are working hard.

“One of the things I like to do is look at how beginners are swimming,” Dickens says. “While it is a low-impact sport, it’s like running. If you’re running and your stride is off and you do it over and over again, you can really run the risk of withstanding an injury. It’s the same with swimming.”

What is a Good Swimming Workout?

Dickens likes to break it into three levels. “For Level 1, if you’re just starting out, it could be anywhere from 800 to 1,500 yards or meters. That’s based on your ability, how often you swim, and your comfort level. Someone that doesn’t swim as often can do 1,000 and still get the same benefit of a workout I would do at 3,000 or longer. If you’re a good runner, you could probably run longer, and your heart rate stays really low because you’re efficient at it. With swimming, the more you swim, the more you get that technical efficiency, and it becomes like walking to where you’re not trying that hard.”

“If you’re someone that is comfortable swimming, anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 meters or yards can be a fantastic workout,” Dickens says. “For myself, when I swim, I never really go over 3,000 yards or meters, but I try to focus on getting a quality workout, which takes me about an hour. I don’t just get in and swim back and forth. I do more style sets and intervals, so I’m stopping frequently, but I’m doing harder efforts. I find that’s another way you can incorporate more variety into your swimming. You don’t have to go in there and say you’re going to do 20 laps. Over time, you’re going to going to get a plateau effect to where it’s going to feel like going for a walk. If you break it up and do things differently, you’re going to get that cross-functional training in the pool. If it’s shorter distances you’re doing, you can work harder. If it’s six to eight laps, you’re going to have to spread your effort out. It’s the same if you go for a short run, you’re probably going to run faster. If you go for a long run, you’re going to run slower to sustain a pace for a longer period of time.

Add Variety

“I look at every sport and think if you do one sport in isolation, you’ll do it well but if you do multiple things, you’re only going to make all those things better in doing them in connection. If you have a routine where you run, bike, life weights, swim or yoga; all of those things are going to make all those things better.

When I was training, there were specific things that I did to improve my swimming. That was predominantly explosive work, like weightlifting but that was very specific for what I was trying to achieve, such as going to the Olympic Games. If you’re just looking to be a better swimmer, there’s things that you can do to help improve that. One of them is yoga. That’s very beneficial because you’re working in different positions that are going to help strengthen your core as well as your stabilizer muscles. The small muscles in your shoulders, your hip flexors, knees. and the joints, they’re really important in swimming. Taking the time to strengthen those small muscles without adding a lot of resistance will make a huge impact.”

Don’t Be Intimidated By Equipment

“One of the things that a lot of people don’t think of is adding some equipment to your swimming can make it a lot of fun. There’s a misconception that using the kickboard, pull buoys, or flippers are meant for more advanced swimmers, but they help people who are getting started. The kickboard and pull buoys keep you afloat. The flippers can help you kick more because it increases resistance to make you work harder and it also increases your speed, which will make it fun.

A lot of the pre-swim routine work I do is with a Strechcordz with light movements. That helps me a lot because it decreases the risk of injury, warms up the muscles while also strengthening them. I think the more you can expose yourself to other activities, the more it’s going to benefit you overall. The main thing is to have fun with it. If you take it too seriously, then no part of it ends up being fun, and that’s true whether it’s weights, running, biking, yoga or core work. Keeping it fun for yourself is the most important part.”

Get Some Help

“Try and get some help. I think water is a foreign space for a lot of people. You must actively breathe while turning your head out of the water. It’s not something we’re born with a comfort level with. Seeking out some help, finding ways to make it fun with equipment like FORM googles to be more engaged is a great start. Get a little bit of coaching from a local instructor or someone you know that knows how to swim well.

A couple of tips can really help you increase your comfort level so that you can see yourself doing it. You don’t have to swim as long as you can or as fast as you can. Break it up into chunks to make it more enjoyable and beneficial for yourself. If you’re looking to get into it, it never hurts to get a couple of tips from someone, look up a few videos to look at the proper form, arm motions so that you’re not pulling too much in the wrong direction to impact your shoulder tension.”

Swim Like an Olympian with These Pool Workout Tips for Beginners originally appeared on MuscleandFitness.com