Running header: PERIODIZATION PROJECT

Periodization Project:
Swim Team Program
Kellen Beckwith
Ohio University
Coed 6160 Performance & Conditioning

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Periodization Project:
Swim Team Program

Every athletic program is comprised of many different planned pieces from practices, off
season, pre-season, competition, and much more. A key component to every program is the work
done in with strength training. This is a place to take training and make physical gains to the next
level. There are many different philosophies in strength training to help make these
improvements, one being periodization. Fleck and Kraemer (2004) describe a periodization
program as the planned changes in volume, intensity, and exercises over cycles built to optimize
peak performance, with built in regeneration time to avoid overtraining, during a season (p. 210).
This program will focus on the entire macrocycle for a year of training for a college swim team
who focuses on peaking at the NCAA Division III National Championship meet. The goals of the
program are to help develop strength during the season while staying connected throughout the
body during all exercises, peaking for the NCAA Championship in March, and maintaining
strength in the off season.
Warm-Up:
To start any work out, athletes must be warmed up and ready to perform, otherwise they put
themselves at further risk of injury during exercise. For the program, we warm up the entire
body, get the blood flowing, waking up, and dynamically activating all areas of the body. The
warm up will take place before every training session during preseason and in season lasting
around 10 minutes. It is not a time to work hard and intensely, add a little bit of time between
movements to not wear them out. The warm up goes as follows:

Lower back rollers: laying on back, knees tucked to chest rolling back and forth)
Laying on back legs bent and together trunk rotation: arms out to side on the
ground, legs bent at 90
On back knee to opposite arm: little pull on knee with hand to get more of a stretch

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(We would start with these three to help wake up the lower back, an important area that
can be forgotten.)
Jumping jacks: to get the blood pumping
Alternating pulling knee to chest: keeps the body moving and stretches out the upper
leg and glutes.
Kick stretch: Step, kick to hand, step back, back lunge. This exercise is used to help
dynamically stretch both legs with the hamstrings during the kick and quads during the
back lunge.
Arm swings:
-One arm forward the other arm backwards
-Side to side
-Transition into a bent over straight are swing activating the back again.
These allow the arms to move in all directions to get them ready for pulls,
pushes, and lower back.
Walking dynamic stretches:
-Length of stretch quad then move it out in front on its heel to stretch the
hamstring.
-Length of inchworms to continue to stretch out the lower back and hamstrings.
-Length of side bear walk, plank position, hands together with the feet apart, and
then alternate to move forward. The bear walk activates the core, shoulders, and
back.

Following the dynamic stretching portion of warm up, we would move into the weight room
to continue the warm up with a few more exercises. The exercises would vary from day #1 to day
#2 to allow for wide range of exercises to help activate and develop areas of the body,
specifically preventative work for the shoulders. These exercises are always done with very light
weight, low repetitions and are done to activate the core groups to be exercised and for injury
prevention of high risk areas for swimmers. To start the season we will do these sets twice
through and transition later in the season during peaking to only once through.
Day #1
- Internal shoulder rotation with band
- External shoulder rotation with band
- Goblet squat with hold
- Back extension hold
- Scapula push ups
Objectives/Timeline:

Day #2
- Anterior shoulder raise with band
- Posterior shoulder raise with band
- Goblet squat with hold
- Back S extensions
- 3-way shoulder fly on bench
(overhead/side/wolverine)

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Duration
Focus of
Training

Pre-Season
4 weeks
Conditioning and
being an athlete

Calendar year
Season
25 weeks
Swim specific
exercises

Post-Season
8 weeks
Alternative
training to keep
fresh

Summer
15 weeks
Swim specific
exercises

The macrocycle, based on a 52 week calendar, begins with the start of the school year with
the athletes returning to campus in September. Within the large macrocycle are four mesocycles
including the pre-season, season, post-season, and summer training periods. During the year the
focus will be on strength in legs, upper back/lats, always having the core engaged, and injury
prevention for shoulders.
The first four weeks of the school year start with the pre-season work. During this time
frame the focus of training is training twice a week to help the athletes being athletic and
conditioning as a whole. Additionally, during this phase they will be focusing on strengthening
shoulders and working technique for leg exercises to help build a base for when season officially
starts. The table below lists the pre-season program used:
Squat/Leg Drills
- Squat with bands around
knees
- Single leg squat against a
wall, leg that is up is against
the wall
- Goblet squat with kettle bell
- Heels up squat, followed by
squat with heels down
- Single leg dead lift
- Toe touch/squat/frog/hands
up/stand up

Shoulder Exercises
- Internal shoulder rotation
- External shoulder rotation
- Anterior shoulder raise
- Posterior shoulder raise
- Clock walk
- Shoulder series
(front/45/side) thumbs up
and thumbs down

Conditioning Circuit
- TRX pull
- TRX push up
- Air squats to ball
- Hurdle step overs
- Supermans
- Alternating tuck ups
- Inchworms
- Med ball slams
- Jump rope
- Plank up downs
- Good mornings
- Back bridge
- Sit ups
-Battle ropes with squatting

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These sections should be done in order of left to right, starting with all the leg work,
shoulders, and then conditioning to place the focus on technique when preforming the work. The
intention of the squat/leg work is to focus on the tracking of the knees and not letting them dip in
while executing any of the drills. As for the heels up squat, it is done to help get the feel of
driving through the heels for a squat. Finally, the toe touch/squat/frog/hands up/stand up exercise
breaks down a squat and helps the athlete drive up in the squatting. With all the stroke repetition
in the pool, swimmers are easily prone to shoulder issues, hence the focus on strengthening the
area. The circuit is added for conditioning of all areas: chest, back, legs, stretching, shoulders,
lower back, and core. To start the circuit will be done 30 seconds on/30 seconds off and then
transitioning to 45 on/ 15 off as the season approaches. The exercises are done for technique and
should not be sacrificed for speed.
Following the four weeks of pre-season the official season will start and continue to build off
of the base of the pre-season development. Periodization programs are broken down into phases
of training while varying in intensity of the exercises, number of repetitions, and amount of rest
between exercises to allow for different results. Below is a breakdown of the season with the
months, phase, number of sets, and focus of each period.

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October

November

December

January

February

March

4 weeks working hard with

1 week moderate to
regenerate

Hypertrophy Phase:
4 sets x 12 reps
Containing part of pre-season
circuit and adding the weights
with low intensity
4 weeks working hard with
Basic Strength Phase:
3 sets x 8 reps
1 week moderate to
Begin to add more weight, not
regenerate
to failure
1st week is the regeneration
Basic Strength Phase:
3 sets x 8 reps
week from November and
Continued with not a lot of
lines up with the mid-season weight increase while they are
meet to allow them to
going through finals and
perform.
home for Christmas
4 weeks of working hard
Power Phase:
4 sets x 4 reps
Only doing a few repetitions,
weight is increased
1st week of working hard
Power Phase/Peaking Phase:
4 sets x 4 reps
continuing the power phase,
Continue previous month,
Off
followed by a week off for
week of regeneration to build
4 sets x 4 reps
conference competition,
off of and start up again.
3 sets x 2 reps
then a week after of Power
Transition the last week into
and transition into Peaking
more weight and less
the last week.
repetitions with lots of rest
Last 10 days before
Peaking Phase:
2 sets x 1 rep
competition are off of
Moving lots of weight and
weights to peak. The last
only doing a few repetitions.
session is easy weight just
Lots of rest between each set
to activate muscles
Baechle and Earle (2004) pp. 511-512

Following the season the team will transition the post season. During this time the team will
train on their own with the focus of staying in athletic shape. This includes similar work to the
pre-season, not high intensity, but more repetitions. We strongly encourage out athletes to get
away from the water, go ride a bike or fun, but focus on areas of weakness with strength training.
Once they return home for the summer, they will phase back into the more swim specific
exercises and conditioning work at the same time. This time period will be almost identical to the
hypertrophy phase of October and can get a little bit into the strength phase of November.

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Exercises:
Swimming is a whole body sport, connecting an athletes finger tips to their toes and always
having the core engaged. The exercises in the program were selected to hit each major muscle
group in a variety of methods. Below is a list of the two day exercise list, in order:
Day #1
- Front squat
- Alternating Dumbbell bench press on a
Swiss ball
- Seated hamstring curl
- Streamline flat leg crunches
- Seated cable row
-Calf raises (toes in/forward/out)
- Lat pull down (wide grip)
- Alternating shoulder raises

Day #2
- Leg press
- Swiss ball flyers (2 swiss balls, forearm
on balls, plank position)
- Good mornings
- Knees to chest on pull up bar
- Supine row feet up on box
- Calf raises (toes in/forward/out)
- Pull ups
- Clock walk

Both day #1 and #2 are whole body work outs, alternating upper body and lower body
exercises, since we would only be in the weight room twice a week. Based on Fleck and
Kraemer (2004) explanation of exercise order, the focus exercises, legs, are first and then
followed by the second most important area, chest/back (p.160). Squats and leg press were
selected to complement each other and work on the quads in a different way each day.
Continuing with the legs, one of the problem areas for swimmers can be their hamstrings due to
the excessive kicking. I selected seated hamstring curl and good mornings to help strengthen the
area to help prevent injury. Additionally, with a lot of ankle movement in all forms of kicking it
is important to have strong claves in swimming. While a lot of power in swimming is generated
from the legs, some of the kick and rotation comes from the core, this is why both streamline

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crunches and knees to chest are in the program. Since the core and legs do not propel a swimmer
through the water we need to work on upper body strength in the program too. Dumbbell bench
press on a Swiss ball was selected because it involves many different areas. The athlete has to
keep their hips up engaging the core, while one are is doing the press the other is not moving
forcing the athlete to work shoulder stability, and of course working the chest with the press. To
complement this press exercise, the seated cable row was selected to work the back. On day two
Swiss ball flyers and supine row act in a similar complementing manor working the back press
and chest pull. The Swiss ball flyers force the athlete to stabilize with core and also shoulder, all
at the same time pulling with the back. The supine row forces the athlete to keep the hips up,
engaging the core, and does the pull for the chest. Another large muscle group in swimming are
the lats, hence the lat pull down and pull ups. Working both of these exercises allow a swimmer
to connect the grabbing of the water in their stroke to their engaged core. Lastly, alternating
shoulder raises and clock walk were selected to help develop the strength in the weak area of
swimmers. Both exercises are not intense, but focus on preventative rehab work.
This periodization program for swimmers has been set up to help them develop whole body
through exercises that assist them in their movement through the water. The timing of the phases
was set up to allow athletes to work on general conditioning and then transition into more
swimming specific movements, while getting stronger with the inclusion of moderate
regeneration weeks to be able to build off of. With the gradual buildup of intensity and reduction
of volume over the course of the season, the athletes will be set up to perform at their peak come
the NCAA Championship meet.

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References
Baechle, T.R. and Earle, R.W. (2008). Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning. 3rd ed.,
Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics Publishers.
Fleck, S.J., and Kraemer, W.J. (2004). Designing Resistance Training Programs. 3rd ed.
Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics Publishers