Dryland Training Ideas

Introduction
For this blog I have chosen to provide a list of activities and exercises that I have used in my dryland training sessions done in the past. These activities and exercises represent just small number of the things I have done with my swimmers.

I am a strong believer in dryland, rather than the weight room for high school/club swimmers. At the college level I have come to believe that the weight room is good for some, while dryland or some type of combination of the two is best for college level/age swimmers. What I can tell you is that strength and endurance on land based activities does enhance in water strength and endurance, especially if the land based activities has a focus of functional strength.

For all of the dryalnd activities I have conducted. I constantly endeavored to make them so that they were all movements that would enrich, carry over and enhance in water movements. I have tried to follow the philosophy of Strength and Conditioning Coach Vern Gambetta. I believe that expecting the same tempos on land, and a nearly same movement on land and in the water translates into faster and stronger swimmers. For example, after we first started this type of dryland in Tacoma,Washington with my high school teams, girls and boys, at Wilson High School I saw a great deal of growth in the student-athletes. One girl's season saw the girl's team achieve 90% life time bests at the District Championships and then two weeks later at the state meet. In fact I can tell you that not only did those who shaved for districts have LTBs, those who did not shave also had LTBs. An added bonus was that at the state meet those who shaved at the state meet had LTBs in both prelims and finals. The same is true of the boy's team. The boy's team during their fourth year of doing the dryland program had 100% LTBs at state prelims to finals and they won their third in a row Washington State High School Championship, which represented Wilson's 28th State Swimming and Diving Championship in 40 years.

Here are are some of the dryland activities we did:     

Ladder Challenge 
Explanation: Start at 1 Rep each exercise and go up to 5 Reps, and then back down to 1 rep. When arriving at 5 reps make sure you are repeating 5 reps twice before going on to 4-3-2-1 rep for each exercise. If you complete 1-5 and 5-1 reps each exercise you will complete 300 total reps. If you can do 1-10 reps each exercise you will complete 1100 total reps. The goal is to complete a GOAL number of reps in 60 minutes

1. Uncle Rob's Push ups
2. Jumping Jacks
3. Breaststroke Squats
4. Russian Twists (left-right=1 rep)
5. Flutter Kicks-2 or 4 count=1 rep)
6. Mountain Climbers (left-right=1 rep)
7. Streamline Leapers
8. Streamline Lunges (left-right=1 rep)
9. Ballet Squats
10. Streamline Toe-raisers

Conclusion: If you start at 1 rep each exercise and go up to 5 reps and back down again you are doing 200 total reps. If you go to 10 reps and then down you are going to do 1200 reps total. Done fast this will help you increase your endurance and functional strength.

Ab Endurance Challenge
Explanation: For this challenge you will be doing a set number of reps in one to five AB exercises followed by a short run/jog. It is recommended that you start out small, maybe one or two Ab exercises and building into this challenge before starting with five different exercises. It is highly recommended that before starting you should have set a GOAL for the number of reps you want to complete in 60 minutes. Keep going for one hour, counting the number reps you complete at the end of 60 minutes.

1. Jog for 1/5th mile
2. 20 Reps Crunches
3. 20 Reps Accordions
4. 20 Reps Flutter Kicks-2 count
5. 20 Reps Russian Twists (Left-Right=1 rep)
6. 20 Reps Left/Right Crunches (Left-Right=1 Rep) then start with number again.

Conclusion: As you go through this challenge keep track of how far you jog and how many rounds you complete in 60 minutes. If you can complete 10 rounds in this challenge you will have jogged 2 miles and completed 1000 Reps

Upright Challenge
Explanation: For this challenge you will always be on your legs, no Abs in this one. It is similar to the Ab Challenge only you will be doing reps on your legs.  For this challenge you will be doing a set number of reps in one to five exercises followed by a short run/jog. It is recommended that you start out small, maybe one or two exercises and building into this challenge before starting with five different exercises. It is highly recommended that before starting you should have set a GOAL for the number of reps you want to complete in 60 minutes. Keep going for one hour, counting the number reps you complete at the end of 60 minutes.

1. Jog for 1/5th mile
2. 20 Reps Jumping Jacks
3. 20 Reps Squats
4. 20 Reps Lunges (Left-Right=1 rep)
5. 20 Reps Streamline Leapers
6. 20 Reps Breaststroke Squats-then start with number again.

Conclusion: As you go through this challenge keep track of how far you jog and how many rounds you complete in 60 minutes. If you can complete 10 rounds in this challenge you will have jogged 2 miles and completed 1000 Reps

Endurance Challenge 
Explanation: For this challenge you are going to do a team run for 60 minutes to 120 minutes. This challenge might be in place of a water workout and would conclude with a team activity such as a team breakfast, or stretching session, or short water session with games. For this challenge you will need a safe jogging course that is easily followed. The team should run together and have two stops if you are jogging for 60 minutes-every 20 minutes, and 3 stops for 120 minutes-every 30 minutes. During these stops you should do a brief motivational thought and some type of exercise for a 10 minute period of time. Feel free to adjust the number of stops and what you do during this stop.

Team Record Challenge
Explanation: For this challenge you will select one exercise and perform that exercise for the entire time. For example you wight set a time frame of 20-30-40-60 minutes. You could also select two exercises and do 10 minutes of one and 10 minutes of another up to 20-30-40-60 minutes. At the end of the time period calculate the total number of reps performed by each person and that becomes your team record for that exercise until you try it again. It is important to remember that when doing this challenge you want to be ready for the exercise and the time frame. So do not start at 60 minutes of crunches unless you are ready for it. Here are some recommendations:

1. Crunches
2. Flutter Kicks
3. Jumping Jacks
4. Squats-all varieties
5. Mountain Climbers
6. Step ups using a step aerobics bench, or curb
7. Lunge Leapers
8. Squat leapers

Conclusion: As you go through this challenge the participants will begin to take pride in their accomplishments if you will share with them the number of reps achieved, and keep track of them for history. Then the next time you do this challenge you can point out that last years team did "this many reps, so today are going to break last year's record".

Team Challenge
Explanation: For this challenge you would need to divide up your team into smaller groups-by stroke, by class in school, by age, by gender (have a boys v boys and girls v girls,or even a girls v boys). Take up to 60 minutes and give each team an exercise, or series of exercises and see who can complete the most total reps in the allotted time. Some recommendations:

1. 2-3 teams of 10 members-can be two teams of 10 boys and 2 teams of 10 girls. Five team members would be doing the exercise(s) and 5 would be counting the number of reps. You could yell "switch" at certain time segments to have the counters become the exercisers. I have always liked doing two or three exercises and then switching half way through. At the end of the time period gather the total number of reps completed and add them together to determine a winning team. A good combination of exercises are:
a. Jumping Jacks and Crunches
b. Mountain Climbers and Flutter Kicks
c. Step ups and Streamline leapers
d. Breaststroke Squat and Push-ups

Conclusion: This challenge is a great way to bring your team together and have them work with, and get to know new people. You can always keep track of the winning team's total and that could become your team's team record for those exercises. The next time you do this challenge through that number out as the number to beat.

Summary

I believe in a well thought out and programmed dryland session. I believe that the ideal dryland set up is to have in done three to four times a week. In doing this you must be creative and alternate your exercises to keep things fresh and boredom out. Being creative is very important. In addition to building strength and endurance the dryland can help you bring your team together and create a great culture of pride, hard work and togetherness.

At Wilson I was fortunate to have a good friend, Chris Luther who was exceptionally helpful and a key part of our success. He once built for us sleds that held on person. To each sled he had two ropes attached that were used by a team of swimmers to pull who ever was in the sled. Each sled was manned by 7-9 people. 6-8 would pull, 3-4 on each side, and one would ride in the sled to be pulled. As the Dryland Race Challenge started each team of pullers and rider were lined up behind a starting line and then Chris would sound his whistle the teams began their race. We raced around the school property which included a hill climb. After a certain time period Chris would blow his whistle and then a puller would slip into the sled to become a rider and the rider became the puller. We did this until each team had completed one to two trips around the school property. Everyone had a chance to pull and ride in the sled. It was great fun but it was also a great challenge to see which team finished first.

On another occasion, Chris brought several logs to practice. Each log was painted a different color. The color of the log represented the weight of the log. Again for a Team Challenge we divided the swimmers up into groups of 8 to 10 on a team. The groups were given a log based on their strength and size. The groups were then lined up behind a starting line and upon the whistle began a run around the school. There was one catch however. Upon the sound of the second whistle each team had to do 20 sit-ups as a team while holding the log. Upon completion of the sit-ups they had to get up and continue the run while carrying the log. There were usually 5 to 6 blows of the whistle so everyone completed 100 to 120 sit-ups as a team. This was a great activity and it helped to bring the swimmers together, as well as helped create a culture of working together to achieve a common goal.

These are just two examples of how you can use dryland to help build endurance strength and endurance that carries over into the pool, build a TEAM culture and a culture of working together to achieve a common goal.

Recommended Reading

1.  https://www.functionalpathtrainingblog.com/2009/11/suggested-readings.html. This website contains a "recommended" reading list of articles and books about function strength and endurance training.
2. Athletic Development: The Art & Science of Functional Sports Conditioning, Vern Gambetta. Available through Amazon and on Kindle
3. Gambetta method : common sense guide to functional training for athletic performance, Vern Gambetta, Gary Gray, Jimmy Radcliffe, Jason Soncrant