Listen up, swimmers - these 5 exercises help boost strength, flexibility, and mobility out of the pool

Swimming might be a low-impact exercise but it can be tough on the back, shoulders, and core muscles, which is where Pilates for swimmers comes in. The movements help work all these areas, boosting strength and improving mobility and flexibility.

If you do a Pilates workout at home or a regular Pilates abs workout, you'll likely be familiar with some of the movements, but in the pool, you'll find the single arm and leg focuses have a particularly unique effect.

The movements, as prescribed here by Claire Mills, physiotherapist, Pilates expert, and founder of Core LDN, can help "improve your body awareness, core control, and optimise movement patterns" in your swimming workouts, she says.

Pilates for swimmers

1. Swimming in prone

This position closely mirrors swimming itself. Lying in the prone position (on your stomach), Mills says it challenges the strength and endurance of the muscles in the lower and upper back, hips, and core, supporting you in the pool.

Here's how to do it:

• Lie on your front, with a yoga mat underneath you for comfort if needed, and rest your head on top of your hands.
• With your core engaged, lift your upper body towards the ceiling.
• At the same time, lift your legs and feet off the floor and perform butterfly kicks
• Make sure the tops of your feet don't touch the mat

2. Shoulder bridge

• Lying with your back flat on the floor, engage your core muscles.
• Bring your legs towards your buttocks to about 90 degrees. Push up using your glutes until your lower body is in a tabletop position and you're resting on your shoulders.
• Extend one arm straight behind you, while extending one leg away from you.

If you find this position difficult, try a dead bug exercise first to help you build up strength and coordination.

3. Kneeling press up

"A kneeling press-up is great for shoulder and core strength," explains Mills, regardless of whether you can do a regular press-up or not.

Here's how to do a kneeling press up:

• Kneel down on your yoga mat with your knees together.
• Leaning forward, place both hands on the ground, keeping your body straight from head to toe. Make sure your core and upper back stay engaged.
• Lower down slowly until your chest is a couple of millimetres away from the floor. Pause for a moment.
• Slowly raise yourself back up.
• Repeat the movement.

4. Alternate arm and leg reaches

Doing the next three exercises one after the other, without a break, will "challenge the endurance of the core and posterior sling," says Mills.

She suggests doing each of the following three for one minute each, doing 30 seconds on each side for the single arm and leg exercises.

• Lie on your back on the yoga mat with your core engaged.
• Bring both arms up and over your head towards the back of the room.
• At the same time, extend one leg out, lowering it until it's a couple of millimetres away from the floor.

5. Extend arm/leg lift + lowers

• Kneel down on your mat on all fours, core engaged.
• Simultaneously, lift one leg and the opposite arm from the floor until it comes level with your body.
• Complete the exercise on both sides for 30 seconds each.

If you're familiar with the bird dog exercise, you'll already know how to do this Pilates for swimmers movement.

6. Arm/ leg reaches with ab curl

• Similar to the exercise above, come down onto your hands and knees on your yoga mat.
• Keeping your core engaged, extend one arm out in front of you and one leg out behind you at the same time.
• As you bring them back in, pull both towards your core.
• Focus on staying balanced, and complete the exercise on both sides for 30 seconds each.

Benefits of Pilates for swimmers

• Helps build symmetrical strength: Pilates be a useful form of strength training for women who may be stronger on one side of their body than the other, which is very common. These movements "focus on core strength and the strength of your deep stabilisers while challenging the muscle slings that work across the body to allow your hips, pelvis, low back and shoulders", she explains. 
• Move through the water smoothly: As Pilates helps encourage better posture and lengthening of the spine, it challenges the endurance of muscles deep in the body, explains Mills. "This will help you maintain a more natural, streamlined position while swimming."
• Helps you swim faster: If speed is the name of your game in swimming, you'll want to incorporate some Pilates into your routine, the instructor says. "Pilates exercises strengthen and work muscles and joints through their range of movement, which can help improve flexibility and strength in areas such as your hips and shoulders, which can help you swim more efficiently."

Is it better to swim before or after Pilates?

This depends on what your focus is. If you want to focus on building strength and flexibility, do your Pilates for swimming workout first. That way, you'll have more energy and won't be tired from the swim.

However, if swimming is your focus, you might want to devote most of your energy to this, so you should swim first and do Pilates second.