This week’s guest is Keenan Robinson, national team high performance director for USA Swimming. Keenan is a coach who is fusing modern S&C and sports medicine practices with swim performance, and has worked with prominent swim programs such as The University of Michigan, North Baltimore Aquatic Club, and Arizona State University, not to mention being the 2016 head athletic trainer for the USA Olympic contingent in Rio. He is also the strength coach for Michael Phelps, arguably the most successful Olympic athlete of all time.
The world of strength training for swimmers is emerging quickly, yet hardly gets the discussion and social media presence that strength for other popular sports, such as football, basketball, baseball or general speed training harness. I’m excited to host Keenan on today’s episode, as I hope it to facilitate some important discussions in the field that can lead to healthier, and faster athletes in the water.
I know that many coaches who listen to this podcast may not work with aquatic athletes, but I have found over the years that the challenge of learning what makes aquatic athletes fast from a functional, dryland perspective, makes you look “under the hood” into the subsystems, and deep stabilization network of the body more than any other sport, and forces an honest diagnosis of training transfer on a regular basis. It also brings up great lines of discussion as to the ideas of general, specific, and coordinative aspects of training transfer and athletic well-being.
I believe there is a good reason why all athletes (those looking to do other sports in high school/college) should have some experience swimming at a young age before they move along the path of specialization.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:10 — 33.3MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Pandora | iHeartRadio | JioSaavn | Podchaser | Gaana | Email | Deezer | Anghami | RSS
View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.
Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.
Key Points:
- Keenan’s background and journey in the world of swim dryland strength and performance
- The number one thing that makes swim athletes different than land, and how coaches should keep this in mind when working with them in a resistance training setting
- Are there things in the weight room that successful aquatic athletes are generally better at than mediocre aquatic athletes?
- How much strength is enough when training various swim strokes and distances in terms of some common swimming lifts, such as weighted pull-ups, or front squats
- Keenan’s take on training specific positions or movements in the weight room
- One thing Keenan would change that is commonly performed in aquatic strength programs
- Keenan’s take on stretching for swimmers
- The best approach to shoulder stability and preventing shoulder issues in swimming
“The major difference (between swimming and land based athletes) is we are a sport that trains 11 months, 3 weeks out of a year. There is no real off-season”
“The fish-out-of-water is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me… athleticism is athleticism.” “A back-to-breast turn is all athletic movement”
“The minimal effective dose of strength training has to coincide with the dose being applied in the water”
“(Regarding lifts that good swimmers can/should do well) I think vertical pulls (pullups, etc.)”
“For a while, I thought I had a relationship between posterior chain strength and our best kickers, but now, scratch that, we go back to their anthropometric factors, ankle range of motion, and those who have had been given kicking early on in their development as a swimmer, those are the best kickers”
“(Positional “Specific” dryland training) what we do is work on stabilization of those body parts while the extremities are moving” “Making sure I can go through body segments and make sure that it is in accordance to what their limitations are from an anatomical standpoint and segments thoughout the spine”
“(Regarding stretching) Anything you can do to help facilitate elongating those adaptive shortenings (in heavily active swim muscles) so you don’t start getting into those tendonopathy issues, I support”
“Dynamic stabilization is a CNS activity, do I program that at the end of the week, probably not? If I spend the first half of the week resetting that (perturbation based work) and programming that, there will be a learning pattern that will keep the cuff centered throughout the week”
About Keenan Robinson:
Keenan Robinson is the national high-performance director for USA Swimming. Keenan has had over 8 years of experience working with strength, injury prevention, and monitoring based aspects of training swimmers. Robinson comes to the national office from Arizona State University, where he was head of high-performance services for aquatic sports. A longtime member of the North Baltimore Aquatic Club staff as director of athlete services, he worked with Olympic gold medalists Michael Phelps and Allison Schmitt and as a key advisor to Head Coach Bob Bowman.
A 2002 graduate of Adrian (Mich.) College and a 2005 graduate of the Arizona School of Health Sciences, Robinson was an assistant athletic trainer for swimming and diving at the University of Michigan and an athletic trainer with Club Wolverine.
Robinson is married to the 2004 Olympian and University of Southern California All-American Kalyn Keller. The couple has a two-year-old daughter, Regan Molly.
Free Speed Training eBook - Velocity 101
Improving speed is one of the most popular topics in the athletic performance equation. Where there are many ideas and thoughts out there, as to particular training exercises, or setups, the more core aspects of speed training often go without mention. These include the fundamental aspects of what makes an athlete fast, specific sprint-power concepts, the relevance of "3D" motion, motor learning and more.
Velocity 101 will help you take a leap forward in understanding of what makes athletes fast, and how to train it effectively