First off, I want to take a brief moment to thank everyone out there working on the front lines. There are so many of you who are continuing to go to work and putting yourself at risk to help so many out there. This is thank you is not just for the medical professionals helping but to the cleaning teams at the hospitals, those working at the pharmacies, people working the grocery stores, those helping to keep public transit running and to so many others still working so we can continue to function as a society. Thank you for everything you are doing! Everyone else…stay home and don’t be idiots!

Ok, now to talk about what you came here for!

We are about a month in and we are still only talking about the Coronavirus AKA Covid-19. At this point your pools have probably been closed and for many of you, your beaches are closed too! This leads to the obvious problem of having nowhere to swim! There are still a few ways you can swim if you are creative, which I discuss in this video. I digress, I am sure you have tried many dryland routines already and are doing whatever you can to stay swim fit. The problem with many of the routines out there is how long they take. Are you really going to spend an hour every day, or even 3 times per week, doing bands and body weight exercises to stay swim fit when you can bike or run instead? Probably not.

This video is the routine I do everyday to help me stay swim fit and keep my body primed for freestyle open water swimming. It works all the proper muscles and with the right strength of resistance band, your lats and triceps will be on fire. The best part is that the entire routine is only 8 minutes long and you only need a resistance band. The key to its effectiveness is that it should be done most days of the week. Check out the video below!

Let’s Break It Down!

This dryland session is a standard tabata style workout. It consists of 4 exercises. You will do each exercise for 2 minutes alternating 20 seconds of doing the exercise fast as possible with proper form followed by 10 seconds of rest. The exercises are done as progression that starts with bilateral gross motor motions and works our way to a unilateral freestyle swimming motion.

All of these exercises can be done either on a bench, a swiss ball or bent over at the hips. The only real equipment that you need is a resistance band with moderate resistance. I use bands that are between 20 lbs and 30 lbs of resistance. The order of exercises are:

1. Lat Pull Down

2. Tricep Squeeze

3. Unilateral Pull Down into a Tricep Squeeze Alternating Arms

4. Freestyle Recovery

Each exercises is demonstrated in the video and the entire workout is done as well. Give this workout a try at home and please let me know what you think in the comments. I would love to see your the other routines you have enjoyed as well. Please post those in the comments so we can all benefit!

Please stay home, wash your hands and don’t be a bunch of “covidiots!”

Successful swims are built with Endurance!