For the past few months, SwimSwam has been posting a daily swimming workout to help inspire swim coaches around the world who are looking for new ideas to try with their swimmers. Since most of the world’s pools are currently closed for business, we wanted to give swimmers and coaches an alternative set of dryland workouts to use to stay fit during the quarantine. These workouts will be designed to be done around the house. Some will use basic equipment, like medicine balls or stretch cords, while others will be all body-weight exercises.
These workouts are provided for informational purposes only.
See more at-home training ideas on our At Home Swim Training page here
Squats – With Weight
Over the weekend, we talked about how to make upper body workouts progressively tougher while using bodyweight. Because of the nature of upper body lifts, weights have to be of a certain ergonomic to work. For the lower body, that’s still a concern, but less so. Adding 10 or 20 pounds to your squat routine is easy. Don’t go crazy – once you start adding too much weight the ergonomics can become problematic again. For reference, 1 gallon of water weighs 8.34 pounds. A gallon of milk is a little heavier, about 8.6 pounds.
Find a weight that’s comfortable. If this is your first time adding weight to your squats – ever or just since you’ve been at home – go slow. 10 pounds is a better starting point than 50 pounds and a hernia.
When digging through your pantry, note that there are 16 ounces in 1 pound.
Warmup
Here’s a good warmup routine pre-squats:
30 seconds between sets
- 3 sets x 10 reps of squats
- 3 x 20 lunges
- 3 x 10 pistol squats (left leg)
- 3 x 10 pistol squats (right leg)
- 3 x 10 “Good morning” (video)
- 3 x 10 donkey kick
- 3 x 20 side lunges (10 each side)
- 3 x 15 calf raises
- 3 x 10 glute bridges
Cooldown
A nice walk will help you work some of the shakes out of your legs.