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Answers from Danny M O'Dell:

Q. I am a 48 year old masters swimmer.  I mostly swim freestyle but have recently tried to branch out into medley swimming as I am strong in most strokes.  I have been frustrated though, by an inability to improve in butterfly.  I seem to lack the arm strength and cannot do more than 25meters in good form.  My current training pattern is to swim 2 kilometres 4x/wk doing various sets.  I also do aerobics with weights 2x/wk.  To improve upper body strength, most days I do 2 sets of 10 push ups. Could you give me both land exercises and water recommendations to strengthen my endurance in butterfly?

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Answer:

Hi Wendy,

You are to be commended for your strong training ethic, keep it up. I would start out by recommending a break from the pool and your aerobics for several days. You are spending a lot of time in the pool, and on dry land doing the same things. Your body may need a rest. After the lay off, then hit it again.

As you are well aware the butterfly is an extremely difficult stroke. Two paths lead to greatness one is perfection of technique the other is strength improvements. Combining the two will lead you to your goal. I have several suggestions to make you a more powerful swimmer.

First, make certain you have a good swimming coach who knows how to instruct the butterfly technique.

Second, you have to make strength gains in your pulling actions and that does not come from doing only push ups. Here I would recommend that you include some form of straight arm pull downs, lots or rowing motions, high, low and medium heights if using a machine. If not, then barbell and dumbbell rows.

Use the military press as your shoulder stabilizer exercise.

Perform many high repetitions of the various rotator cuff exercises.

Find lower torso exercise such as the squat that will help with your hip flexion power, do abductor and adductor exercises and finish off with some medium repetition dead lifts to keep your back strong.

You can also do some ‘bench work’ with light to moderate weight as you practice this stroke. Position yourself perpendicular to a high exercise bench and go to it while maintaining your balance as you do the stroke.

The best type of strength training, in my estimation, will be the ones that closely imitate the ‘correct’ actions in the pool. Don’t use excessive weight that will alter the technique of the stroke because the carry over will be practically nil.

Keep up the training.

Danny O'Dell, MA. CSCS*D