Swimming - The Master of All Excercises (Can dryland exercise help my swimming?)

Swimming, as we have always been told, is called the ultimate, all-around excercise activity. It is said that swimming works all of the body's major muscle groups, has little impact on your joints and can burn as many calories as going for a run. Well, the problem of the last statement with the calories is the length of the exercise. A swimmer needs to swim a lot longer to burn the same amount of calories as a runner. However, on the other hand, it is much tougher for swimmer to move through the water than a runner through the air as water is more dense than water, thus provides much more resistance.

Let's look closely at all major muscle groups statement. Is it a truth or a lie? To help us bust this myth or not, I found the following video which gives us insight into what muscles are actually being used during swimming of all the strokes. The video is a work of Dr. Nakashima from the Tokyo Institute of Technology and I am not sure anything else needs to be said, just watch and you will form your own opinion.

So, to answer the question, "Can dryland exercises help me improve my swimming?" we would have to state that it is a BIG YES, so get out there and start doing something.

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