Did you know that swimming can actually make you faster? There's a secret little known fact that if you include swimming into your training, you will actually become a faster runner. And you might be wondering how? So there are five main key points that we need to address in why swimming will help you become a faster runner.
Ankle strength and ankle mobility:
So a lot of my runners are really surprised at when I give them a specific kicking program that is designed around really focusing on ankle strength and ankle mobility. And how do you do that? By adding resistance in the water by the use of some flippers, You can allow for the foot and ankle to have greater range of motion and allow for the calves, the Solus and the Tibialis Anterior to become a lot stronger than what does that mean for you?That means that your landing and push off are gonna be a lot better for your run.
Core Strength:
Now, the second thing is, swimming helps increase your core strength and you might be going okay. Well, how does that really happen? Well, if you think about it, swimming is one of those activities that requires you to have really good strength, surrounded by your core. That's how you're gonna actually make that movement happen a lot faster in the water. So if you understand how to connect the dots between increasing your lower body strength and your upper body strength at the same time, you're gonna notice that the power is gonna be really generated from the core. Now, when we run, we wanna actually have that same thing. We don't want our legs doing all the work. We wanna essentially harness that power from stimulating our core by allowing ourselves to have a better postural stance while running. So that's something that swimming's gonna help you really achieve.
Arm Swing:
Now, the third thing we wanna look at is the fact that when we run, we wanna have a good arm swing. It all comes down to the fact that we need to really make sure that our subscapularis muscle is working. Huh? Yeah, our subscapularis muscle. That is the muscle that sits underneath our shoulder blade. So when we are bringing that arm in front and we're drawing it through the water. The action really isn’t coming from the Glenohumeral joint, but it's actually from our shoulder girdle. Mainly the entire shoulder complex - the glenohumeral joint plus the scapula. That's really allowing for that pull to happen in the water. A lot of that's being done from our subscapularis muscle, which is one of the four rotator cuff muscles. But then again, it's allowing for our lats, they're hugely important for our arm swing as well to focus on. You know, depressing the shoulder blades down and back and allowing for better mobility of the arm.
Diaphragmatic Breathing:
The other thing is to focus on the fact that swimming requires more of diaphragmatic breathing. Now, if you are somebody who is one of those runners, who's always like, okay, I feel like every time I try to run faster, I'm struggling with my breathing. Swimming will allow for you to kind of go ahead and start practicing diaphragmatic breathing, which also means too, yo
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