Top Land Workouts for Building Stamina and Endurance for Swimming

When searching for information about how to build endurance for swimming on land, it is all about the exercises that you can do at home or in the gym, geared towards making you a better swimmer.

Like in running, endurance in swimming is mostly about how far you can swim at the best speed. If you are a beginner swimmer, you will realize that you get tired after just a few laps of swimming.

However, when you start exercising outside the pool, focusing on building your swimming stamina and endurance, you will see a lot of improvement.

Who should build endurance for swimming?

Mostly, this should be anyone who swims. Of course, like any other sport, you want to compete against yourself to see whether you can do better today than you did yesterday.

Competitive swimmers, for instance, are people who love to participate in triathlons and swimming competitions and also benefit a lot from endurance swimming.

If you love swimming in open water, you will also benefit a lot when you do dry land exercises that build endurance for swimming.

After you learn the basics of swimming, like mastering the five strokes, you should think of how to increase your swimming distance and time.

But first, learn things like how to float well in water. When you are confident that you are past the beginner swimmer stage, you can start thinking about dry land endurance training for swimmers.

How to improve swimming endurance for beginners

There is only one way to work on your endurance swimming technique, and that is to train hard on dry land and then swim often.

As you can see, this is the hard way! There is no easy way to build your endurance for swimming.

Also, as long as you are in sound health, your age doesn’t really matter. You can start swimming endurance training when young or even when you are old. The best thing is to start now, or as soon as possible.

Keep reading to see a few tested and proven ways to improve swimming endurance:

Upper Body: Training for swimming endurance and stamina

Since swimming involves all body parts, you need to work out different muscle groups. Here, we start with the upper body exercises that you can undertake to help build your stamina for the swimming pool.

Pull-Ups Exercises for swimming stamina

These are a great way to start working out your upper-body muscles. Mainly, pull-ups will help the back, shoulder, arms, and even chest muscles.

What happens when you swim is that you kick with your legs, and then you use your hands to pull your weight through the water. Now, if your kick is good, but the pull is not so good, well, you will not swim far.

If you have a pull bar attached to the door frame at home, this exercise is very simple to do and very effective. You just need to stand under the bar and stretch your arms, palms facing forward. Grasp the bar at shoulder width with both hands.

Engage your core fully and then pull yourself up while keeping your torso straight, until your chin is above the bar.

Do as many reps as you can. In the first days, you might not be able to go beyond two reps, and that is okay.

Cable Pulls

Also called face pulls, here you get to pull the cable towards your face. This training engages your shoulders, arms, and back muscles.

In swimming, balance is very important, and this exercise helps with that. It works out the shoulder muscles, making them quite strong so that you can swim harder.

With your cable already installed, to start working out, just hold the ends of the cable with both hands, one on each side.

You need to step back a bit so that when you look up at the cable, it is above your head, ahead of you. That way, when you reach out to the handles, you will have to lean slightly backward.

Make sure your elbows are at the same level or slightly above your head, and then pull the rope to a point slightly above your head.

Do as many reps as you can. If you are at an advanced level, pull more weight.

Lower-body endurance exercises for swimming

Having looked at two exercises that target the upper body muscles, now we shall look at two exercises that target the lower body muscles. These are the legs, thighs, and glutes.

Kettle Bell Swing

This is one of the simplest gym workouts that works out your lower and upper body muscles. Of all the workouts that we have looked at here, this one works out the most muscle groups.

It will work out the legs, buttocks, shoulders, forearms, and back muscles. To be specific, in the lower limbs, it will work out the hamstrings and glutes.

Kettlebell swings are also very good for strengthening the muscles around the spine and, definitely, your core. The core muscles help you to swim in a straight line.

How to do kettlebell swings

To start, you need to stand with a straight torso and your feet placed wider than shoulder width. You can then grab the kettlebell with both hands and swing it back between your legs.

Keep the torso straight and try to keep the legs straight too, although there will be a slight bend at the knees.

Try to contract the glutes muscles to engage them fully, and then swing the kettlebell forward and upward until it rises to eye level.

You can count that as one rep completed. Do as many as you can. You can try heavier kettlebells for a bigger challenge, or you could try doing the kettlebell swing with one arm.

Barbell Squats

The good thing about training with barbell squats is that they help the upper as well as the lower body. The arms have to lift all of that weight, while the legs have to support the body and the weight.

How to do barbell squats

Start with lower-weight plates before you tackle the big boys.

Go to the weight rack and step under it. Lift your hands, palms facing forward, until you feel the places specified for holding on either side of the barbell. Lift the weight ever so slightly, such that it is resting across your shoulders, and step backward from the rack.

Try to keep your back straight and then start squatting down, as if you are sitting down on a chair. Go as far down as possible until your thighs are parallel to the floor. If you can go lower than that, fine.

Rise up slowly and get back to the beginning position.

How to build endurance for swimming on land: FAQ

Swimming never stops, even when you get out of the water. If you want to be very good, you must keep working on it. It is vital to get started on dryland endurance training for swimmers.

In this section, you can see the frequently asked questions regarding how to increase swimming stamina with dryland exercises.

How do you build endurance for swimming on dry land?

There are hundreds of exercises that you can do at home or in the gym to give you stamina for endurance swimming.

Start with kettlebell swings to build your core muscles, while pull-ups can build your shoulders, back, and biceps. Bench press is good for building strength so that you can swim longer and harder.

How can I improve my swimming endurance?

First, you need to start with dryland endurance swimming exercises such as kettlebell swings, bench presses, pull-ups, and cable pulls.

When you get in the pool, start swimming slowly but steadily. This helps you avoid using the oxygen and nutrients in the muscles all at once. With every swimming session, increase the distance

How can I practice swimming on my land?

Start with the simple things, such as lying down on your belly and kicking your legs behind you. You should kick without bending your legs. Also, running helps, as does indoor cycling.

What is endurance swimming?

This is the kind of swimming where long distances are involved. In this kind of swimming, you need to maintain a slow and steady pace so that you can swim the longest distance, unlike pool swimming, where you gun for speed.

Why is swimming endurance?

Swimming becomes an endurance exercise when the distance that you make becomes more important than the speed at which you swim. You need to engage in dryland exercises for endurance swimming so that your muscles can retain oxygen and nutrients to enable you to swim longer.

Conclusion: How to build endurance for swimming

If you would like to swim longer distances than swim fast, you need to strength-train your muscles to swim longer.

Swimming is a form of training itself. However, you do not stop when you get out of the pool. Rather, you continue with other dryland swimming endurance exercises.

Some of the things that you can try out include pull-up exercises, kettlebell swings, cable pulls, and barbell squats.

Of course, including a leg day at least once a week is going to give your legs the extra strength that you need to kick harder.