{"id":435031,"date":"2020-07-15T14:04:08","date_gmt":"2020-07-15T21:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=435031"},"modified":"2020-07-20T16:36:02","modified_gmt":"2020-07-20T23:36:02","slug":"how-a-backyard-pool-can-save-your-swim-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/how-a-backyard-pool-can-save-your-swim-body\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Backyard Pool Can Save Your Swim Body"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whether your swim group is shut down, you are on vacation, or you are a triathlete looking for a place to train, backyard pools can be far more productive than you may think.\u00a0\u00a0 At an average of 35 feet or less, most backyard pools provide competitive swimmers very little workout effort, unless you completely rethink and redo the way you train.\u00a0 A flip turn and underwater undulations can take up an entire pool length, leaving no length for a real workout.\u00a0\u00a0 By converting your at-home dryland training over to \u2018swim specific muscle movements<\/a>\u2019, you can offset the net loss you are having by not swimming.\u00a0\u00a0 But if you have access to a backyard pool, your body will sustain its swim muscles much better by getting in the pool 5-7x per week.\u00a0 Any swimmer knows that a week of vacation can require 2-3 weeks of swimming to get back to the shape you were originally in before the vacation.\u00a0\u00a0 This is costly when you combine all the vacations during the year, or months of stay-at-home orders.<\/p>\n

In order to maximize the conditioning you can receive with a backyard pool, you will need to embrace interval intensity training and creative techniques.\u00a0\u00a0 As a home base for such training, you can find short videos, sets, and set components for backyard-pool training here<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 For most people the idea of swimming in backyard pools means that you will be swimming on a tether or \u2018swim-in-place\u2019.\u00a0 Swimming on a tether may be critical, if you have an extremely small pool or if you just want to stay in shape and are not a competitive swimmer or triathlete.\u00a0\u00a0 But swimming in place is NOT ideal if you are a competitive swimmer and have a pool that is at least 20 feet long.\u00a0 For such swimmers you should be swimming back and forth in your pool, while engaging much more aggressive technique and forms of resistance swimming.\u00a0 This will start by unlearning \u2018good walls\u2019 and doing what we call \u2018surface open turns\u2019 (video below).<\/p>\n

The next factor that you will need to incorporate, to maximize small pools, is resistance.\u00a0 There are ways you can create resistance on your own (such as wall kicking and vertical kicking), but in most cases you will need physical resistance on your body and enlarged paddles, and other devices.\u00a0 An ideal device for backyard pools is the Power Chute by ONEswim.com<\/a>.\u00a0 This is a parachute that is worn directly on the small of your back.\u00a0\u00a0 A normal parachute on a tether won\u2019t open up until you are almost more than half way across most backyard pools, making them worthless for this use.\u00a0 The Power Chute can be worn on your back or on your stomach and will open up before your feet even leave the wall.\u00a0 This provides constant resistance to make your pool feel nearly 2x longer.\u00a0 But, this is just 1 of many devised that can help create resistance, and you can find kits of products and more options out there.<\/a><\/p>\n

Power Chute<\/a><\/p>\n

\"PowerChuteimage\"<\/a>

Photo Courtesy: Oneswim.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Now that you have the right approach and the right gear, you need a plan to create your workouts.\u00a0 Plenty of set components are offered here – Backyard Pool Training Workout Sets\u00a0 (<\/a> with lots of worksheets for \u2018pull\u2019, \u2018kick\u2019, \u2018main\u2019 sets and more with each component having a brief video to make sure the swimmer, and their spotter, understand the purpose and performance of each exercise.\u00a0 This allows you to build your own progressive workouts based on your skills and conditioning over time.\u00a0\u00a0 But before we go any further, a legal disclaimer\u2026 do not train yourself with any of these methods without someone to spot you and keep an eye on you.\u00a0 These methods are not recommended for beginner swimmers, or young swimmers, but should only be done under close supervision, just like any other competitive swim practice always has a coach and typically a lifeguard watching you.<\/p>\n

Now let\u2019s dig into the type of changes you need to make so your backyard pool workouts will push you technically and physically.<\/p>\n

DON\u2019T Do Flip Turns!<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Quality flip turns can ruin your conditioning in a backyard pool.\u00a0 This is not because of your turn itself, as much as due to your underwaters.\u00a0 Unless you are purposefully working on your underwaters, or doing things like underwater flutter kicking, pushing off underwater and undulating 3-4 times will get you most or all of the way across your backyard pool.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There is no way to fully push your cardio conditioning, or pull muscles, if you don\u2019t surface until you are 5-10 feet from the next wall.\u00a0\u00a0 The best way to avoid all of this underwater distance is to do a \u2018surface open turn\u2019.\u00a0 This is the same as a true open turn (for breast and fly races) but instead of pushing off underwater, you will push off on the surface (like you did when you were just learning to swim and didn\u2019t want to get your face in the water too much).\u00a0 Simply do a normal open turn, but stay on the surface so you are pushing off on the surface.\u00a0 The resistance of the surface when you push off the wall will prevent you from going too far before you need to start swimming, kicking, pulling, etc\u2026\u00a0 This requires a lot of effort and gives you the entire distance of your pool to work on your primary set goal.<\/p>\n

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