Background On Resistance Training

Resistance training in swimming has been a complicated and controversial topic for years. Some believed swimmers should not perform resistance training as swimmers want longer, lankier muscles. However, over the past few decades, resistance training has become more commonplace, with high anecdotal evidence to support its usefulness, especially in short course swimming.

There are more forms of resistance training than weight training, for example, 1) strength or resistance training, 2) assisted sprint swimming, 3) arms-only training, 4) leg-kick training, 5) respiratory muscle training, 6) training the energy systems, and 7) combined interventions. Of all these topics, only seventeen articles on the topic were qualified for review.

The purpose of this paper was to systematically review exercise training intervention studies designed to investigate the impact of exercise training on competitive swimming performance.

What was done

The researcher’s looked on all the article databases for eligible articles. For eligibility, articles must be in English, German, Swedish, Danish or Norwegian and published before 1980. These studies must also look at competitive swimmers above 14 years of age.

Seventeen articles were included and nine of them were randomized controlled studies. The studies looked at various swimming distances and ages, but the mean age was 19.2 years and 8.8 participants per study.

CLICK HERE to read the full article from our friends at Swimming Science