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The Importance of Dryland Training
This tip comes from Dr. David Swensen, a certified
strength and conditioning specialist and assistant
coach for the YMCA of the North Shore in Melrose,
Mass. Swensen talks about the importance of dryland
exercises.
Swensen’s Tip:
Several studies have compared swimmers with higher
impact athletes such as gymnasts or runners, and non-athletic
individuals and found the bone mineral densities (BMD)
in the spine and most areas of the body to be the
same, but they found the hip region in swimmers to
have lower BMD than the other groups. This doesn’t
mean that swimming thins your bone. This is an expression
of Wolf’s Law (for you physiology geeks), which
tells us that your body will deposit more bone mineral
to areas of your skeleton that are stressed by your
usual activities. Therefore, it is a good idea to
add higher impact weight bearing activity to your
swimmers’ routine. Weight training can help,
as long as the swimmer performs exercises in which
he is loading his skeleton in an upright position.
Some examples include squats, lunges, cleans and some
plyometric exercises such as box jumps. These should
all be done with proper supervision. Mixing in some
running activities will also help increase bone density
at the hip. Also, don’t forget the importance
of dietary calcium. |
