Swimming Anatomy

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CHAPTER 1

THE SWIMMER IN MOTION

Swimming Anatomy is both a visual guide to the role of the musculoskeletal system in the four competitive swim strokes and a catalog of swimming-oriented dryland and weight-room exercises. The exercises in the text will help you maximize your performance and gain a competitive edge. Specific examples will help you choose exercises that target the most-used muscles for each stroke, starts, and turns to ensure that you are getting the best results from your program. Included are exercises that may help you prevent injuries by strengthening key stabilizing muscles and decreasing muscle imbalances. To help you understand how these exercises enhance performance, descriptions of the roles that various muscles play in propelling a swimmer through the water and guidance in using selected exercises to target those muscles are included. This chapter features an overview of the primary muscles used in the kicking motions and during the pull- through and recovery phases of freestyle, butterfly, backstroke, and breaststroke. The chapter also addresses some strength and conditioning principles and how they relate to designing a swimming-specific dryland program. Chapters 2 through 8, organized according to major body parts, each contain exercises with accompanying illustrations and easy-to-follow descriptions and instructions. The anatomical illustrations that accompany the exercises are color-coded to indicate the primary and secondary muscles and connective tissues featured in each exercise and swimming-specific movement.

Primary muscles

Secondary muscles

Connective tissues

Swimmers face several unique challenges that athletes in most land-based sports do not encounter. The first challenge is the total-body nature of all four competitive strokes, which involve movements of both the upper and lower extremities. A coordinated effort of the musculoskeletal system is required to keep each body part moving correctly to maximize efficiency of movement through the water. To visualize this coordinated effort, think of the body as a long chain and each body segment as a link in the chain. Because all the segments are linked together, movement in one segment affects all the other segments. This linkage, commonly referred to as the kinetic chain, allows the power generated by the arms to be transferred through the torso to the legs. But if a link in the chain is weak, a loss of power transfer can occur, bodily movements can become uncoordinated, and the risk of injury can increase.

Another unique demand of swimming is that swimmers are required to create their own base of support. Unlike land-based athletes, who have a stable surface to push off from, you have to generate your own base of support, because most training takes place in a fluid environment. The key to linking the movement of the upper and lower extremities in the water, and at the same time generating a firm base of support, is a strong and stable core. The core is best thought of as the foundation on which the muscles of the upper and lower body are built. Even a strong and well-designed house will eventually deteriorate if the foundation is weak.

Without a doubt, swimming itself is the most effective way to become a better and faster swimmer, but several components outside the water play an important role in how you develop as a swimmer. One of those is a well-designed dryland program based on an appreciation of the relationship between the body’s muscular framework and stroke mechanics. While engaged in swimming, muscles primarily function as either the mover of a body segment or a stabilizer of a body segment. An example of a muscle functioning as a mover is the latissimus dorsi, commonly known as the lats, moving the arm through the water during the propulsive phase of all four competitive strokes. The near-constant activity of the core abdominal musculature is a prime example of a group of muscles functioning as a stabilizing mechanism. Both functions are vital to proper stroke mechanics and efficient movement through the water. Descriptions of the muscle recruitment patterns for each of the four strokes are categorized as those that are active during the propulsive phase, the recovery phase, and kicking.

Throughout the exercise descriptions in the subsequent chapters you will see a series of five icons, one for each of the strokes and one for starts and turns. The purpose of these icons is to identify the exercises that are particularly well suited to a specific stroke or starts and turns.

Freestyle