
FAQs
If you think you might be too old, the answer is that you're too old NOT to be doing strength training.
You may be surprised to hear that the answer is no! Swimming is great for health and general fitness, but it doesn't replace the strength, power, mobility and bone/muscle density that nature starts stealing from you in your 30s, the rate of decline only increase as you get older. This is why strength training is so important as you get older, not just for swimming, but for everyday life.
Our training starts "working" right away, but it doesn't immediately transfer to speed in the pool. Initially, as your body adapts to the new stimulus, you may feel a little tired or sore, and things may feel a little "off" in the pool and the gym. This process happens with all strength programs - even the ones that don't work, unfortunately, there is no get-rich-quick option that works. Whilst with most strength work, the soreness continues, on our program, as your body adapts, the soreness wears off and you start to feel stronger in the gym - setting regular exercise PBs. You'll start to feel fresher when you leave the gym than when you arrived. The final step is learning how to harness your increased strength, power, mobility and endurance in the pool. This is like when swimmers have a growth spurt and often don't get faster in the water immediately. It takes time for you to get used to your new, improved swimming "machine", and as you do, that translates to improved performance in the water. You'll feel more explosive in starts and turns, you'll be able to add more kicks and distance to your underwaters, your catch will improve, you'll be more mobile in your rotations, your hips and shoulders will feel greasy and free, breathing becomes more efficient. You'll find you're able to wring further improvements out of your technique to add even more speed, and injuries and niggles become a thing of the past.
We like to say this process, from starting to breaking a plateau and setting new best times in the pool, takes around 6 months. For most it's quicker, for many, much quicker, but for a few it will take a little longer. So there's a fair bit of work to put in up front before you see the results, but you're a swimmer, right? And this is far more productive than spending the same energy trying to work harder in the pool...because this works!
We've never had anyone follow our program and not get faster, including Olympic and World Champion Chad Le Clos. When Chad started training with us, he hadn't set a best time for years, was approaching 30 and spiralling towards retirement. Imagine how tough being in a plateau is when you're one of the best swimmers in the world, and the whole world is watching you. He had supposedly received the very best training the swimming world could provide, but still hadn't been able to shave any time off his old PBs. Our programs are unique, we do exercises, and train in ways, that no one else in swimming does, including using neuroscience to train swimmers in line with their brain chemistry and personality. Chad was reluctant at first, but decided he had nothing to lose. Fast forward to the end of the season and Chad confounds the critics by swimming his fastest ever times to reclaim the 100 and 200 fly World Championships, in what became known as his "Redemption Season".
We use Chad as an example because, at his level, it is very hard to break a plateau. But we have swimmers of all ages and abilities, from 12 year old age-groupers through to 60+ year old masters swimmers, in all events, distances and disciplines - from sprinters to distance swimmers, from open water to ice swimmers, from underwater hockey players to surfers, from triathletes to water polo players - who are setting regular best times.
This is why we can offer you our unique double guarantee...
1 - If for any reason you're not fully invested in the program in 30 days, we'll give you your money back in full.
2 - If you follow the program and don't swim a best time in your main event(s) in your first season, we'll train you for free until you do (age group PB for masters).
It's never happened yet, but if you're the first, we've got you covered!
Our memberships include 3 x 45-60 minute gym workouts a week.
3 workouts a week is the magic number* - it gives you enough work to get stronger and make progressions week after week, without overtraining, sapping your energy and frying your nervous system.
If you just can't make 3 sessions a week, then 2 can still build strength in a way that translates to the pool - it just takes longer.
If you can go 3 times a week, but only for half an hour, that works too - the first 30 minutes of a workout are the most important.
But 1 session a week just isn't enough to make progress. It's wasted energy you might as well save, by the time you get to the following week's session, you've lost any gains you may have made the week before.
And you can't make up for missed sessions by doing more on other days - 3 x 30 minute sessions will work better than 2 x 45 minute sessions...and 1 x 1.5 hour session will just leave you burnt out and sore..
Whether you go to a commercial gym, or have a set up at home, it's important to have access to a gym. If your home gym doesn't have all the equipment we usually use in our workouts, no problem, we can build that into your program.
No program that works is going to be easy - you have to do the work. But the big thing with our workouts is we don't grind you into the ground - we do enough...then stop. Any extra work you do after you've done enough is wasted, not only does it not make you any stronger, it leaves you tired and sore, which ruins your next swim - and perhaps gym - session. It's like medicine, taking more than the right amount doesn't make you "more better" or better quicker, it makes you worse.
Our workouts are delivered in the TrainHeroic app, so you can do them on days and times that are convenient for you. Every exercise includes an explanation, details of reps/sets and a video, so it's really easy to follow. Although you may be working out on your own, you're not alone. Our online Community includes hundreds of like-minded swimmers, so it's a great place to keep yourself accountable, share wins and advice, and of course, ask questions, inw hat is a safe and very supportive space.
I don't know what you're doing right now, but the chances are it's one of the following...
Your strength training is either delivered by a swim coach, who doesn't understand strength training, or a strength coach who doesn't understand swimming (even if they used to be a swimmer themselves). It's not your swim or strength coach's fault, there are very few people in the world who genuinely understand strength training for swimmers.
You're doing bodybuilding/powerlifting type workouts. These may get you stronger, but not in a way that translates to faster swimming. You may get an initial bump of feeling stronger, but this will soon turn to feeling heavy and slow in the water. If bodybuilding worked, bodybuilders would make the best swimmers - they don't!
You do bodyweight circuits, maybe with your team. There are many reasons why these don't work, here's a few...
- exercises canโt be progressed beyond bodyweight
- different swimmers have to work at different levels based on their weight not their ability
- swimmers donโt get the same hormonal benefits or nervous system activation as lifting weights
- swimmers find bodyweight exercises boring and are much more motivated by doing professional workouts
- the high volume required makes swimmers sore and hurts their recovery. Swimmers become workhorses not racehorses.
You do random workouts from YouTube or Instagram. Firstly, these are likely to be bodylifting, powerlifting or bodyweight workouts as mentioned above, none of which will make you faster in the water. Secondly, doing things randomly rather than a following a specific program, does not build strength. A program that works has to be focused and make progressions in each session, which you canโt do if the type of workout keeps changing.
You don't do any strength training. The downside of doing nothing is that you're missing a great opportunity to get faster in the pool. The only upside is that you're not wasting your time and energy doing something that is likely to actually slow you down in the pool, like the above examples.
Your coach is an idiot! Why would they not want you to do something that is guaranteed to make you swim faster? Because they're too insecure to let someone else be involved in their swimmers' training? Because they think they know better? There are a handful of people in the world who genuinely understand strength training for swimmers...and I guarantee you that your coach isn't one of them! If your coach doesn't have your best interests at heart, maybe it's time to take responsibility for your own training. If you have time and energy-wasting "babysitter" style dryland sessions, with poolside burpees and press-ups once a week, just stop! Or if it's mandatory and you feel you must go, do our stuff as well. The dryland you do with your team will dilute the effectiveness of our program a little, but you'll still be way better off.
Yes! Although it will work even better if you have a great swim program, strength training is a great way to get faster in the pool despite having a swim program that sucks! A lot of swim programs, probably the vast majority, overtrain swimmers. This keeps you tired and sore, rather than recovering properly. Getting stronger in the gym will allow you to handle the "garbage yardage" better, so it is less taxingand has less of a negative effect on you. If you don't do enough race pace training, our program will stimulate your nervous system and get the fast twitch fibres switched on in the gym.
I can tell you again and again that this works, but why should you believe me? Fortunately, you don't have to. The proof that most people look for these days are testimonials. Recommendations from people who have already had success, and we have many hundreds of these - I've never counted them, but we receive them every day. Take a look here for a selection...Testimonials. And if you mistrust me enough to think I made these up, then it's probably best we don't work together - you need to believe in what you do!
Workouts should be done on different days, ideally with a day between eg. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. But if that's not possible, then whenever you can fit them in, as long as you don't do more than one in a day. The main rule is that if you're doing a workout on the same day as a swim session, either do the workout before you swim (it's fine to go straight from the gym to a swim session) or have a gap between them, for example, swim in the morning then workout in the evening. The only thing not to do is go straight from a swim session to a gym workout - your swim session will dilute your workout, whereas working out before swimming will prime your body and nervous system for swimming.
Imagine you wanted to cook a delicious meal that you'd once had in a great restaurant, but didn't know how to cook and didn't have a recipe. You might have a pantry full of delicious ingredients, but if you don't know which ones to use, in what quantities, how to cook them and how long for, the chances of success are slim. All the exercises I show on Instagram are used in our workouts, but there are hundreds of them. Our workouts are very carefully designed to combine a complementary collection of exercises, in the right quantities, at the correct exertion level, in the ideal order, to get the desired results. Each separate workout each week will be a different set of exercises, but they will complement the other exercises being done that week. The workouts will update every three weeks, although some exercises will remain for longer. Our memberships are the recipe that hold the key to a successful program.
โ
Our programs are NOT written by AI.
๐ REPEAT: โ NOT AI-GENERATED โ
Just kidding! No, I design all our workouts personally. There are very few people in the world who really understand strength training for swimmers, and none of us have our programs freely available on the internet. AI learns from what is available to it via the internet, so it would generate strength training for swimmers by searching for workouts that match that description - which is probably what your coach does. And like your coach, it will end up with workouts that may get you stronger, but not in ways that translate to getting faster in the pool.
๐ END TRANSMISSION ๐
I totally get it if you can't afford a membership, and I make a lot of stuff available for free to help as many swimmers as I can. Are these things as good as a paid membership - no, of course not. But they are better than most of the "paid for" stuff out there for swimmers!
Follow my Instagram account for details of free stuff that works!
For years you get faster because your technique is improving and your body is growing. But as you approach your ultimate adult size, and improvements in your technique become increasingly small, your work in the pool becomes less and less productive. What many swimmers do, in an attempt to find additional speed, is to increase their work in the pool, they do more sessions and work harder. Ironically, this makes them tired and sore, which is more likely to slow them down than speed them up. Mindset is also critical to racing fast, and as their natural increases in speed dry up, swimmers can't understand why all the work they're doing isn't translating to extra speed, and worry about being stuck in a plateau, which often becomes self-fulfilling. The good news is that you still have a completely untapped resource available to make you faster in the pool, it is...you've guessed it...strength training! Proper strength training, specifically for swimmers, adds strength power, mobility and endurance you simply can't build in the pool.
Our training starts "working" right away, but it doesn't immediately transfer to speed in the pool. Initially, as your body adapts to the new stimulus, you may feel tired and sore, and things may feel a little "off" in the pool and the gym. This process happens with all strength programs - even the ones that don't work, unfortunately, there is no get-rich-quick option that works. Whilst with most strength work, the soreness continues, on our program, as your body adapts, the soreness wears off and you start to feel stronger in the gym - setting regular exercise PBs. You'll start to feel fresher when you leave the gym than when you arrived. The final step is learning how to harness your increased strength, power, mobility and endurance in the pool. This is like when swimmers have a growth spurt and often don't get faster in the water immediately. It takes time for you to get used to your new, improved swimming "machine", and as you do, that translates to improved performance in the water. You'll feel more explosive in starts and turns, you'll be able to add more kicks and distance to your underwaters, your catch will improve, you'll be more mobile in your rotations, your hips and shoulders will feel greasy and free, breathing becomes more efficient. You'll find you're able to wring further improvements out of your technique to add even more speed, and injuries and niggles become a thing of the past.
We like to say this process, from starting to breaking a plateau and setting new best times in the pool, takes around 6 months. For most it's quicker, for many, much quicker, but for a few it will take a little longer. So there's a fair bit of work to put in up front before you see the results, but you're a swimmer, right? And this is far more productive than spending the same energy trying to work harder in the pool...because this works!
We've never had anyone follow our program and not get faster, including Olympic and World Champion Chad Le Clos. When Chad started training with us, he hadn't set a best time for years, was approaching 30 and spiralling towards retirement. Imagine how tough being in a plateau is when you're one of the best swimmers in the world, and the whole world is watching you. He had supposedly received the very best training the swimming world could provide, but still hadn't been able to shave any time off his old PBs. Our programs are unique, we do exercises, and train in ways, that no one else in swimming does, including using neuroscience to train swimmers in line with their brain chemistry and personality. Chad was reluctant at first, but decided he had nothing to lose. Fast forward to the end of the season and Chad confounds the critics by swimming his fastest ever times to reclaim the 100 and 200 fly World Championships, in what became known as his "Redemption Season".
We use Chad as an example because, at his level, it is very hard to break a plateau. But we have swimmers of all ages and abilities, from 12 year old age-groupers through to 60+ year old masters swimmers, in all events, distances and disciplines - from sprinters to distance swimmers, from open water to ice swimmers, from underwater hockey players to surfers, from triathletes to water polo players - who are setting regular best times.
This is why we can offer you our unique double guarantee...
1 - If for any reason you're not fully invested in the program in 30 days, we'll give you your money back in full.
2 - If you follow the program and don't swim a best time in your main event(s) in your first season, we'll train you for free until you do (age group PB for masters).
It's never happened yet, but if you're the first, we've got you covered!
Whatever your age, gender, ability, event or distance, we've had other swimmers just like you who have had incredible success with our program.
"But how can it suit everyone?"
The reason is that the exercises are auto-regulatory, which means they adapt to the ability of the athlete doing them. So an age-grouper and an Olympian can both do the same workouts and both get maximum benefit.
"But don't I need a program specifically for my event/distance?"
No, the event/distance specific work happens in the pool. In the gym, we work on the things where we get better results in the gym than in the pool, like strength, power, mobility, recovery, reflexes, elasticity, injury prevention, etc. In fact the only thing that gets better results in the pool is your swim technique. This is why strength training is so important.
Our memberships include 3 x 45-60 minute gym workouts a week.
3 workouts a week is the magic number* - it gives you enough work to get stronger and make progressions week after week, without overtraining, sapping your energy and frying your nervous system.
The exception is our Jacked Speed memberships, which focuses on physically bulking up whilst also getting faster, which includes 4 x 60-75 minute gym workouts a week - which takes more work.
If you just can't make 3 sessions a week, then how about 2? 2 sessions can still build strength in a way that translates to the pool - it just takes longer.
If you can go 3 times a week, but only for half an hour, that works too - the first 30 minutes of a workout are the most important.
But 1 session a week just isn't enough to make progress. It's wasted energy you might as well save, by the time you get to the following week's session, you've lost any gains you may have made the week before.
And you can't make up for missed sessions by doing more on other days - 3 x 30 minute sessions will work better than 2 x 45 minute sessions...and 1 x 1.5 hour session will just leave you burnt out and sore..
Whether you go to a commercial gym, or have a set up at home, it's important to have access to a gym. If your home gym doesn't have all the equipment we use in our workouts, no problem, we have alternative exercises available so you don't miss out.
We also have "home" workouts available using a minimum of equipment (pull-up bar - cheap door frame type is fine, resistance bands and a single small - 1kg - dumbbell) for those days when you can't make it to the gym. But these are not a full-time solution
Without a certain amount of equipment, we simply can't do the work required to build strength that will translate to the pool.
No program that works is going to be easy - you have to do the work. But the big thing with our workouts is we don't grind you into the ground - we do enough...then stop. Any extra work you do after you've done enough is wasted, not only does it not make you any stronger, it leaves you tired and sore, which ruins your next swim - and perhaps gym - session. It's like medicine, taking more than the right amount doesn't make you "more better" or better quicker, it makes you worse.
Our workouts are delivered in the TrainHeroic app, so you can do them on days and times that are convenient for you. Every exercise includes an explanation, details of reps/sets and a video, so it's really easy to follow. Although you may be working out on your own, you're not alone. Our online Community includes hundreds of like-minded swimmers, so it's a great place to keep yourself accountable, share wins and advice, and of course, ask questions, inw hat is a safe and very supportive space.
I don't know what you're doing right now, but the chances are it's one of the following...
Your strength training is either delivered by a swim coach, who doesn't understand strength training, or a strength coach who doesn't understand swimming (even if they used to be a swimmer themselves). It's not your swim or strength coach's fault, there are very few people in the world who genuinely understand strength training for swimmers.
You're doing bodybuilding/powerlifting type workouts. These may get you stronger, but not in a way that translates to faster swimming. You may get an initial bump of feeling stronger, but this will soon turn to feeling heavy and slow in the water. If bodybuilding worked, bodybuilders would make the best swimmers - they don't!
You do bodyweight circuits, maybe with your team. There are many reasons why these don't work, here's a few...
- exercises canโt be progressed beyond bodyweight
- different swimmers have to work at different levels based on their weight not their ability
- swimmers donโt get the same hormonal benefits or nervous system activation as lifting weights
- swimmers find bodyweight exercises boring and are much more motivated by doing professional workouts
- the high volume required makes swimmers sore and hurts their recovery. Swimmers become workhorses not racehorses.
You do random workouts from YouTube or Instagram. Firstly, these are likely to be bodylifting, powerlifting or bodyweight workouts as mentioned above, none of which will make you faster in the water. Secondly, doing things randomly rather than a following a specific program, does not build strength. A program that works has to be focused and make progressions in each session, which you canโt do if the type of workout keeps changing.
You don't do any strength training. The downside of doing nothing is that you're missing a great opportunity to get faster in the pool. The only upside is that you're not wasting your time and energy doing something that is likely to actually slow you down in the pool, like the above examples.
Your coach is an idiot! Why would they not want you to do something that is guaranteed to make you swim faster? Because they're too insecure to let someone else be involved in their swimmers' training? Because they think they know better? There are a handful of people in the world who genuinely understand strength training for swimmers...and I guarantee you that your coach isn't one of them! If your coach doesn't have your best interests at heart, maybe it's time to take responsibility for your own training. If you have time and energy-wasting "babysitter" style dryland sessions, with poolside burpees and press-ups once a week, just stop! Or if it's mandatory and you feel you must go, do our stuff as well. The dryland you do with your team will dilute the effectiveness of our program a little, but you'll still be way better off.
Yes! Although it will work even better if you have a great swim program, strength training is a great way to get faster in the pool despite having a swim program that sucks! A lot of swim programs, probably the vast majority, overtrain swimmers. This keeps you tired and sore, rather than recovering properly. Getting stronger in the gym will allow you to handle the "garbage yardage" better, so it is less taxingand has less of a negative effect on you. If you don't do enough race pace training, our program will stimulate your nervous system and get the fast twitch fibres switched on in the gym.
I can tell you again and again that this works, but why should you believe me? Fortunately, you don't have to. The proof that most people look for these days are testimonials. Recommendations from people who have already had success, and we have many hundreds of these - I've never counted them, but we receive them every day. Take a look here for a selection...Testimonials. And if you mistrust me enough to think I made these up, then it's probably best we don't work together - you need to believe in what you do!
Workouts should be done on different days, ideally with a day between eg. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. But if that's not possible, then whenever you can fit them in, as long as you don't do more than one in a day. The main rule is that if you're doing a workout on the same day as a swim session, either do the workout before you swim (it's fine to go straight from the gym to a swim session) or have a gap between them, for example, swim in the morning then workout in the evening. The only thing not to do is go straight from a swim session to a gym workout - your swim session will dilute your workout, whereas working out before swimming will prime your body and nervous system for swimming.
Imagine you wanted to cook a delicious meal that you'd once had in a great restaurant, but didn't know how to cook and didn't have a recipe. You might have a pantry full of delicious ingredients, but if you don't know which ones to use, in what quantities, how to cook them and how long for, the chances of success are slim. All the exercises I show on Instagram are used in our workouts, but there are hundreds of them. Our workouts are very carefully designed to combine a complementary collection of exercises, in the right quantities, at the correct exertion level, in the ideal order, to get the desired results. Each separate workout each week will be a different set of exercises, but they will complement the other exercises being done that week. The workouts will update every three weeks, although some exercises will remain for longer. Our memberships are the recipe that hold the key to a successful program.
โ
Our programs are NOT written by AI.
๐ REPEAT: โ NOT AI-GENERATED โ
Just kidding! No, I design all our workouts personally. There are very few people in the world who really understand strength training for swimmers, and none of us have our programs freely available on the internet. AI learns from what is available to it via the internet, so it would generate strength training for swimmers by searching for workouts that match that description - which is probably what your coach does. And like your coach, it will end up with workouts that may get you stronger, but not in ways that translate to getting faster in the pool.
๐ END TRANSMISSION ๐
I totally get it if you can't afford a personalised membership. Yes, we have other memberships, including neurotype-based programs, which in our opinion, are the next best in the world after our personalised option.
Please ask and I'll be happy to give you more details.