Swimming Warm Ups and Cool Downs

Why do we warm up?

A warm-up period incorporates both physiological and psychological elements which allows the body to prepare for what is about to occur (training, race, etc.).  With this in mind, an effective warm-up needs to be i) progressive in its intensity, and ii) specific. There mustn’t be any part of the warm-up that predisposes an individual to injury. In other words, the warm-up has to be gradual in terms of speed, intensity, and volume.

In English, we use the same term “warm-up” and “cool-down” between running and swimming. In Swedish the vernacular for swimming is “in-sim” a swimming ‘in’ period and an “av-sim” a swimming ‘off’ period – I like these better as it is important to understand that a ‘warm up’ has to be perceived as more than warming the body. Perhaps a term such as ‘preparing all bodily systems to be ready for athletic activity’ would be a more appropriate way to think. 

Let us first park the warm-up before a race. For competitive pool swimmers, this is important and mainly related to temperature changes associated with cardiovascular adaptations and short-term specific neuromuscular adaptations. Maintaining muscle activity and body temperature during the transition phase immediately before the competition helps a swimmer’s performance. 

A typical warm-up would be an in-water warm-up of 1000 to 1200m followed by various sets of full-body ballistic conditioning activities such as medical ball throws, resistance bands, and explosive jumps for no more than 5 min. This is completed no more than 10-15 min before the race. Coaches believe that additional specific neuromuscular adaptations occur during warm-ups conducted in the water, which is why in-water warm-ups are typically combined with dry-land routines. As with all interventions, there is a level of individuality in response. Certain subgroups of athletes may obtain positive effects, while others may see their performance impaired from the same intervention. [Reference: https://rdcu.be/dzKWI ]

How should a warm-up differ for longer events?

The longer-distance swimming races have a larger influence on aerobic metabolism. The literature is scarce on distance swimming, but researchers suggest that swimmers concentrate their warm-up on technical issues (swimming efficiency) and the progressive stimulation of the oxygen uptake so that they can increase body temperature and stimulate the mitochondrial processes. The stimulation of oxygen uptake may remove some of the inertia in mitochondrial activity and the aerobic system improves its preparedness state thus allowing oxygen to be more efficiently used earlier in the event.

In open water races, there is also the practical element that you may not be able to gain access to the water to “warm up” and/or that the water temperature makes “warming up” impractical. In this case, the dry-land routine and the psychological element of the in-sim preparation is perhaps even more important – ‘preparing all bodily systems ready for athletic activity’ means more than just priming the physical body.

Warm-Up Routines for Swim Training

Races aside, in training how should we warm up? A typical workout structure could look something like 1) Warm-Up 2) Build 3) Main Sets 4) Cool Down. My question is; within a typical 60-minute session is this the optimal structure? There is considerable time outside the main work sets in a situation where pool time is a limited resource for most non-competitive swimmers.

The build, where you are progressing your intensity towards the demands of the main sets makes sense if the main sets involve sprint work or other supra-threshold intensities, but the reality of distance endurance-focused swim sessions often negates its importance. Much as we would focus on the warm-up of a speed-focused run interval session very differently than we would approach the warm-up of a 60-minute Z2 easy run with some fartlek.

Also, it is important to recognize that developing swimmers are many steps removed from the performance limiters of the elites. The main performance limiting factors for most of the swimmers I train with are not overcome by priming the cardiovascular system!

So if we remove ‘warm’ and ‘cool’ as the adjectives and focus mainly on the mental readiness to perform a task of precision and technique that demands meticulous attention to detail, should we then change the focus from physical to mental? In which case I’ll re-introduce the Swedish terms:

In-Sim – Getting our minds ready to focus.

Sim – Maximum focus on developing technique and skill whilst training relevant energy systems.

Av-Sim – After a period of high focus, signaling our parasympathetic nervous system to calm the body down and get us into recovery mode. [If you swim late in the evening this is important to improve sleep quality]

With this focus a workout could look like this:

In-Sim: About 10% of the workout. You’ll need this time to get your mind ready for the work. The first few laps may feel cold, but when that distraction is removed you’ll ease into the workout with some drills and technique work. You deliberately “practice” drills, you don’t just “do them”. Although your energy systems are being primed this is mainly focused on getting into the mindset of purposeful practice – only good strokes count.

Sim: About 80% of the workout- This is the meat of the workout. This will vary based on your workout goals and your metrics for success. But I typically put some hard efforts later in this block – the capacity to maintain skill at higher paces.

Av-Sim: About 10% workout- Here I like to use fins with movement patterns like back-stroke to stretch counter to the main patterns that have been employed and breathing patterns to simulate calming breath-work.

The Importance of Dry Land Pre-Swim and Post-Swim Work

If the psychology of the warm-up is the most important thing – this is closely followed by our ability to balance and move in ways that are conducive to good stroke mechanics. We want to maintain posture, engage the right muscles, reduce joint stiffness, release tight muscles, or engage weak muscles to provide additional joint stability. For learning adults this can be a major challenge. We also want to make sure our water time is used as effectively as possible.  

I therefore recommend that you make time for a pre-swim dryland warm-up which includes:

• Dynamic stretching exercises

• Agility exercises

• Specific motor movements (relevant to swimming)

• Plyometrics exercises

The following is a series of recommended exercises you can try:

1.  Head and neck flexion and extension – performed by moving the head up and down in a controlled manner.

2. Reverse lunges with arms above head – aim to keep the upper body upright and raise the arms at the same time to get a stretch through the abdomen and the hip flexors on one side.

3. Rotation in standing position. Move at the hips and the trunk.

4. Calf raises in standing position – push up and lower down with increasing speed to load the calf muscles – if you suffer from calf cramps during swimming this is one for you!

5. Dynamic lunges – to be done by starting in the position shown and jumping high and alternating legs to finish in the same position but on opposite legs.

6. Press ups with trunk rotation – to work on shoulder stability and trunk rotation, replicating a freestyle stroke.

Shouldering the Load

Shoulders are the most commonly injured body part in swimmers, and the injuries are often overuse injuries rather than acute injuries [Sports Medicine – Open, 2016, 2, 27]. Rather than copying an elite by forcefully stretching the ligaments of the shoulder by rapidly spinning the arms before entering the pool; prepare your shoulder joint for the demands of swimming by taking it through a range of controlled exercises to activate the right muscles and joint movements. Additional resistance can be added through the use of a light elastic band (i.e., a TheraBand).

7. With the shoulders back, elbows by the side, and the lower arms extended at approximately 90 degrees perform internal and external rotation of the shoulder keeping the elbows positioned against the sides of the trunk

8. With hands on hips move shoulder blades forwards and backwards by keeping the palms against the hips to ensure pure shoulder movement.

9. Move elbows forwards and backwards with elbows and shoulders adjusted to 90 degrees aiming to squeeze both elbows together.

10.  Perform internal and external rotation with elbows and shoulders raised to 90 degrees (imagine there is a straight line from one elbow to the other and don’t deviate from this position as you rotate at your shoulders)

11.  Streamline your position and draw the elbows towards the hips. As you draw downwards, squeeze the back muscles as if to draw the shoulder blades downwards.

Keep your static stretching for post-swim and/or non-swimming days

Research shows that static stretching reduces the ability of the muscles to generate force, and this effect remains more than two hours after the static stretching with maximum force generation down around ten percent. Moreover, researchers found that there was an increased risk of injury to the muscles that were being statically stretched, especially if they were being overloaded.  There are very few if any sporting movements that replicate a ‘static stretch exercise’.

In summary, pre-swim static stretching is not recommended as the ability to apply power is reduced. Overall, the primary factor is to replicate movements and muscle actions in a warm-up to prepare the body for what it is going to be performing. In other words, before the swim, we should be mobilizing the range of movement we already have. Whereas post swim and non-swim days we can work on improving that range of movement.

Recap

• Focus on the goal of preparing all bodily systems for athletic activity.

• The type of workout will shape the cardiovascular and neuromuscular preparatory needs of the warm-up.

• In all cases, a warm-up routine must create the right mind-space to perform a task of precision which demands meticulous attention to detail.

• A dry-land routine can help both the body and the mind to prepare for the coming work and maximize the use of limited water time.

• Use the cool-down to deliberately trigger the parasympathetic nervous system.

• Consider adding post-swim static stretching, range of movement exercises, and breath work.

Other resources – Ultraswim 33.3 Staff Physio 

This is a great twenty-minute swim-focused stretch routine from Neil Maclean-Martin, a sports injury specialist and physio at three Olympic games. The video is available here on <YouTube>.