Best Exercises For Swimmers
We've got the best exercises for swimmers that's great for all fitness levels.
Swimming is a great full-body workout, but you don’t always need to be in the water to improve your swimming skills. Doing exercises at home can help you get stronger, build endurance, and become a faster, more efficient swimmer.
In this post, we’ll look at the best exercises for swimmers that you can do right in your living room. These exercises are performed on our revolutionary counter-balance board (aka COBA Board) and will target the key muscles you use when swimming, helping you perform better in the pool.
Best Exercises for Swimmers with COBA Board
Squats
Squats help make your legs stronger, especially the muscles in your thighs and hips. Strong legs are important for fast and powerful kicks in the water. Squats also help strengthen your core, which helps you stay balanced and in control when you swim.
Regular Squat
This foundational movement targets the quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes, key muscle groups for generating powerful kicks during swimming. Squats also engage the core, helping swimmers maintain proper body alignment in the water.
Downhill Squat
This variation shifts more emphasis on the quads by altering the angle of the movement, which can enhance leg drive in swimming starts and turns.
Sumo Squat
With a wider stance, sumo squats target the inner thighs (adductors) and glutes, improving leg strength and flexibility, which is useful for breaststroke and kicks requiring strong hip rotation.
Pulsing Squat
Short, repeated movements keep the muscles under constant tension, building endurance in the lower body. This helps swimmers maintain powerful and consistent kicks during longer distances.
Lunges
Lunges make your legs stronger, improve your balance, and help you move better. These things are important for fast starts and turns in the pool. Strong legs also help you kick harder and swim faster, especially in strokes like freestyle and backstroke.
Lunge to Step-Up
This combination of lunging and stepping up onto a platform strengthens the quads, glutes, and hamstrings while improving balance. This exercise mimics the explosive power needed for fast turns and starts off the blocks.
Curtsey Lunge to Step-Up
This lunge variation adds a lateral element, engaging the stabilizing muscles of the hips and glutes. The exercise improves strength and mobility, which are essential for maintaining a streamlined position and smooth body rotation in the water.
Deadlifts
Deadlifts target the muscles in your back, hips, and legs. These muscles are important for keeping your body straight and streamlined in the water, which helps you swim faster. Deadlifts also make your core stronger, which helps you stay stable and balanced while swimming.
Standard Deadlift
This full-body exercise primarily targets the posterior chain (glutes, hamstrings, and lower back) while also engaging the core and upper back. Deadlifts are crucial for improving strength and stability, helping swimmers maintain a strong, horizontal position in the water.
Single-Leg Deadlift
This unilateral movement enhances balance and coordination while targeting the same muscles as the standard deadlift. Single-leg deadlifts can help address imbalances and prevent injuries, which is important for swimmers who rely heavily on symmetrical leg movements.
Hip Thrusts & Glute Bridges
These exercises focus on making your hips and legs stronger. This helps you kick harder and faster. They also help protect your lower back and improve your body position in the water, which makes your swimming strokes more effective.
Glute Bridge (Single-Leg Variation Available)
These exercises are highly effective at targeting the glutes and hamstrings, helping to increase propulsion through the legs during kicks. The single-leg variation further enhances strength in each leg independently, which can improve balance and reduce muscle imbalances.
Hip Thrust
This movement isolates the glutes and builds explosive power in the hips. For swimmers, strong hip extension is essential for generating forceful kicks and improving start and turn performance
Donkey Kicks & Kickbacks
These exercises help build strength in your hips and lower back, which are important for keeping your body stable in the water. Strong hips mean better, more powerful kicks, especially for butterfly and freestyle strokes. They also help you keep a straight, streamlined body position.
Donkey Kicks
This exercise focuses on the glute muscles and lower back, both critical for maintaining body alignment and posture in swimming. Strong glutes help stabilize the hips, which is essential for an efficient dolphin kick and flutter kick.
Kickbacks
Similar to donkey kicks, kickbacks isolate the glutes and hip muscles, further developing the power and control needed for leg movements in the water, especially during butterfly and freestyle strokes.
Cable Pull Through
This exercise works on your hips and legs to make them stronger and faster. It’s especially good for improving your push-offs when you start or turn in the pool. It also helps your core stay strong, which keeps your body stable as you swim.
Cable Pull Through
This exercise primarily targets the glutes and hamstrings, with an emphasis on hip extension. Swimmers benefit from stronger hip extension during explosive starts, turns, and kicking. The cable resistance also helps improve core stability, ensuring better body control in the water.
Core Workouts
A strong core is super important for good swimming technique. Core exercises strengthen your stomach and side muscles, which helps you keep your body straight and strong in the water. A strong core also helps you rotate better during strokes like freestyle and backstroke, making you swim faster and more efficiently.
Abdominal Twist
This movement targets the oblique muscles, which are key for rotational strength. Swimmers, especially those performing freestyle and backstroke, rely on core rotation to generate more power and speed.
Reverse Crunch Pullover
This exercise strengthens the lower abs and engages the upper body, combining core activation with upper body strength. A strong core is essential for swimmers to maintain a streamlined position and reduce drag in the water.
Overhead Crunch
This variation of the crunch adds an extra challenge by incorporating upper body movement, further engaging the core. Core strength is crucial for swimmers to stay streamlined and maintain control during strokes.
Upper Body
Swimming uses a lot of upper body muscles, like your arms, shoulders, and back. These exercises make those muscles stronger, which helps you pull more water with each stroke. Stronger arms and shoulders mean you can swim faster and for a longer time without getting tired.
Bicep Curls
Strengthens the biceps, which are involved in pulling motions during freestyle, backstroke, and butterfly strokes. Strong biceps improve overall stroke power and efficiency.
Tricep Pullbacks
This exercise targets the triceps, essential for completing the arm pull in strokes like freestyle and backstroke. Strong triceps contribute to the final push phase of each stroke, enhancing propulsion.
Single Arm Bend Over Row
This movement works the lats, traps, and rhomboids, all critical for the pulling phase of swimming strokes. A strong back improves stroke efficiency and helps swimmers generate more power with each pull.
Standing Shoulder Raises (Lateral Side Shoulder Raise)
Strengthens the shoulder muscles, particularly the deltoids, which are heavily involved in all swimming strokes. Building shoulder strength and endurance helps swimmers maintain a strong pull without fatigue.
Body Weight Exercises
Here are some exercises you could do at home that only require your body weight:
Squat Jumps
Squat jumps improve leg strength and explosive power, which are essential for fast starts and turns in the pool. They also help develop strong and fast kicks.
Pull-Ups
Pull-ups strengthen your back, shoulders, and arms, all of which are key muscles used in swimming strokes like freestyle, backstroke, and butterfly. They improve your pulling power, helping you move more water with each stroke.
Push-Ups
Push-ups build strength in your chest, shoulders, and triceps, which are important for the pushing phase of your swimming strokes, especially during freestyle and breaststroke. They also engage your core for added stability.
Planks
Planks strengthen your core, which is crucial for maintaining a streamlined body position in the water. A strong core helps with balance, stability, and body control during all swimming strokes.
PlanksSuperman
The superman exercise strengthens your lower back, glutes, and shoulders, which are essential for strong kicking and maintaining a straight body position in the water.
Strengthen These Muscle Groups For Peak Swim Performance
Latissimus Dorsi Muscles (aka "Lats")
The "lats" are located on the backside of the body extending from the shoulder blade, to the side of the rib cage, and down towards the pelvis. If you push your hands together in front of the your chest you'll be able to feel your latissimus dorsi muscles flex. Build up your lats with these COBA strength training exercises:
Single Arm Bend Over Row
Kneeling Upright Row
Two Arm Row
Tricep Muscles
These muscles are located on the back part of the upper arm, opposite to the bicep muscles. Triceps are used for freestyle stroke, backstroke, butterfly, and breaststroke. Build up your triceps with these COBA strength training exercises:
Standing Tricep Kickback
Skull Crushers
Seated Overhead Tricep Extension
Pectoral Muscles (aka "Pecs")
"Pecs" for short, or the pectoral muscles are integral for performing the freestyle, backstroke, butterfly, and the breaststroke. These muscles stabilize the strokes to avoid losing strength while propelling forward and backward. Build up your pecs with these COBA strength training exercises:
Chest Press
Chest Fly w/Crunch
Lateral Side Shoulder Press
Core Muscles (aka "Abs")
Your abdominal muscles, aka "abs", stabilizes and balances your body in the water helping to create a strong foundation that your upper and lower body can work off of. Ab exercises can help develop a tight core to help you remain hydrodynamic and enhance swim performance. Build up your core muscles with these COBA strength training exercises:
Reverse Crunch Pullover
Chest Fly w/CrunchWood Chop
Chest Fly w/Crunch
Quadriceps Muscles (aka "Quads")
The "quads" are the front part of your thighs. These muscles are important when kicking in freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly; as well as starts and turns. Build up your quad muscles with these COBA strength training exercises:
Downhill Squat
Lunge to Step Up
Single-leg Deadlift
Improve Swimming Performance with COBA Accessories
The COBA Board accessories, such as the X-Tra Heavy 30 lb. Underneath Bands, Adjustable Glute Resistance Bands, and Core Sliders, can definitely increase the intensity of any swimmers' workouts. These accessories add extra resistance, making the standard exercises more challenging allowing swimmers and athletes alike, to target specific muscle groups with precision.
Resistance Bands
Resistance Bands add tension during movements, intensifying exercises even more. This helps build strength in key areas like the glutes, hips, and legs.
Core Sliders
Core Sliders enhance workouts targeting the core by requiring more stability and control, improving body coordination and balance.
X-Tra Heavy 30 lb. Underneath Bands
X-Tra Heavy 30 lb. Underneath Bands adds greater resistance to all your exercises. This levels up any gymnasts' workouts for explosive power.
Injury Prevention Through COBA Strength Training
Injury prevention is important for swimmers (and all athletes for that matter!) because the repetitive movements in the water can put a lot of strain and stress on muscles and joints, especially in the shoulders, back, and knees. The COBA Board is a great solution to help swimmers strengthen the key muscles they need to stay safe and avoid injuries. By using the COBA Board for targeted strength training, swimmers can build muscle balance, improve stability, and protect themselves from common overuse injuries. This tool helps strengthen the body in a way that supports healthy, injury-free swimming.
Standing Single Arm Shoulder Raise
Strengthens the shoulder muscles, reducing the risk of shoulder overuse injuries, which are common in swimmers.
Standing Two Arm Bend Over Row
Targets the back and shoulder muscles, helping build stability and prevent muscle imbalances that can lead to injury.
Glute Bridge & Hip Thrust
Strengthens the glutes and lower back, essential for supporting the lower body during swimming and reducing strain on the hips and lower back.
Lateral Side Shoulder Press
Builds shoulder and arm strength, improving stability and preventing overuse injuries during repetitive swimming motions.
Single Leg Dead Lift
Improves balance and strengthens the hamstrings and glutes, reducing the risk of injury to the lower body, especially during starts and turns.
Strengthen Your Stroke with COBA Board
Swimmers require great strength and stability to excel in their swimming performance. The best exercises for swimmers can be done from the convenience of home and doesn't require getting in the water.
Our extensive library of exercises helps swimmers build the strength necessary for powerful strokes and explosive kicks.
The COBA Board is such a great tool to help swimmers build the strength that's needed to swim faster, stay injury-free, and improve their overall performance. Train smarter and swim stronger with the Team COBA!